As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
Busy day today: Someone bought shares for £50k, another one for £70k, another one for £159k (or the same? Last two within 30 sec). Yesterday saw one sale for £118k .
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
Which guys?
All of them, except GW of course. :p Though less sarcastically I assume he speaks largely of the one man kickstarter companies.
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
Which guys?
All of them, except GW of course. :p Though less sarcastically I assume he speaks largely of the one man kickstarter companies.
Yes, those would be the ones most likely to suffer since they probably don't have much in the way of capital reserves or real assets.
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
Which guys?
All of them, except GW of course. :p Though less sarcastically I assume he speaks largely of the one man kickstarter companies.
Yes, those would be the ones most likely to suffer since they probably don't have much in the way of capital reserves or real assets.
But they have more support from the older gaming community.
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
Which guys?
All of them, except GW of course. :p Though less sarcastically I assume he speaks largely of the one man kickstarter companies.
Yes, those would be the ones most likely to suffer since they probably don't have much in the way of capital reserves or real assets.
But they have more support from the older gaming community.
Which means little. If they release one game through kickstarter but can't use that to kick further development into gear, then support isn't going to help, since people buying multiple copies of a game aren't in the majority. He does have a point there - these small kickstarter groups who put one game out then ride its coattails won't be around for long.
That doesn't mean the real competition won't stay around. After all, GW's main competition lately - Privateer Press, Battlefront, Spartan Games, Corvus Belli, Mantic, etc are all building on games and getting bigger because of it.
But then a lot of these one man kickstarters tend to be part-time staffed at best, or more likely a weekend project, with minimal overheads.
There are a lot of small companies that start out with someone who has a bill paying day job and trying to make money from their Hobby at the weekends. It's always been very much a cottage shed-casting industry.
Herzlos wrote: But then a lot of these one man kickstarters tend to be part-time staffed at best, or more likely a weekend project, with minimal overheads.
There are a lot of small companies that start out with someone who has a bill paying day job and trying to make money from their Hobby at the weekends. It's always been very much a cottage shed-casting industry.
Which is largely meaningless if the consumer starts to feel that he/she cannot afford to make such luxury purchases and the caster's business slows down to the point that it is no longer profitable to continue mass casting.
One man.. Two man.. 10 man? Doesn't matter. Even if they are successful right now, it doesn't guarantee that success will continue. You can have a superior product and overextend your business and be taken out behind the woodshed. The key to surviving an economic downturn is by being lean and not having unnecessary pressure put on the business. If people are 100% fully invested in their kickstarter, that usually means they are planning on taking a salary which may not be the best thing to keep the doors open. It can serve as a distraction and cause poor business decisions. This is especially important when you are starting a business.
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Herzlos wrote: But then a lot of these one man kickstarters tend to be part-time staffed at best, or more likely a weekend project, with minimal overheads.
There are a lot of small companies that start out with someone who has a bill paying day job and trying to make money from their Hobby at the weekends. It's always been very much a cottage shed-casting industry.
And these are the guys who would most likely be okay. The ones i'm worried about are the ones that think they are hot gak and already have business cards printed before they have sent their initial product to customers.
Herzlos wrote: Except, of course, that the day job pays the bills so if they drop to 0 revenue from the shed casting they are still getting an income.
But not enough to bother with continuing to do all the work it takes to keep the side business running.
Seriously, would you continue with a side business that took up hours of your time on a weekly basis for negligible or no return?
(Edit: This is coming from someone who used to work a second job as a ballroom dance instructor. When the recession hit and people stopped having money for a hobby like dance lessons, my appointments started to dry up. It got to the point where I would drive all the way to the dance studio to teach a single lesson, rather than four or five. After about six months of this, the time and hassle of trying to keep the side business going, including paying for my own continued training and travel expenses, just got to the point where it wasn't worth the couple hundred dollars a month that I netted out, so I stopped teaching.)
Thank you for sharing your story Saldiven. That is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Even with your business operating with low operating expenses, it wasn't worth the human capital you were putting into the job. It's only worth the trouble when people are spending money and you are getting paid.
And again.. if this was a real recovery we are seeing, we wouldn't be seeing so many retailers closing stores. Staples just announced 225 closings here in the USA this morning. I know you Brits don't think that is a big deal but that is a major office supply retailer. And while this is all going on, investor sentiment is in la la land.
Spoiler:
Investor intelligence is basically a sentiment indicator used to gauge where we are in a cycle. Basic idea is you use this for context and it helps you with timing. Right now, too few people are negative which basically creates an environment ripe for disappointment.
you can't have more sells than buys.. in order for someone to buy shares, someone have to be selling. In order for someone to sell, someone has to be buying. All you are posting is volume. People can look that up fairly easily. It wasn't a large volume day. When volume gets over 500k shares it will be worth mentioning. Till this you are watching paint dry.
dereksatkinson wrote: Thank you for sharing your story Saldiven. That is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Even with your business operating with low operating expenses, it wasn't worth the human capital you were putting into the job. It's only worth the trouble when people are spending money and you are getting paid.
"Human capital" is probably the best word to use in that sort of situation. It's not just money available for investment (the traditional definition of capital) that's involved. It's also an individual's time, effort, and emotional investment that's involved. In my personal case, when I had 4 lessons lined up in the evening, it was worth fighting north-metro Atlanta traffic in rush hour for an hour to get to the studio after work. That was an extra hundred bucks or so an evening, usually three or four days per week. When it turned into $20-$30 per day, only once or twice per week, it's just not worth it. (Income figures are pretty accurate, but gross figures. They don't count my expenses for mileage, gas, dance-wear, and my coaching that ran at $80/hour from a good professional.)
Those are the small businesses that would dry up the fastest, in my opinion. They don't have any vested reason in going through the hassle of running the business if they're not making money since they alread have (like I do) a steady income from a regular job.
Love all the smoke screen techno babble talk, not all people have side business purely for the money, some because they like to built stuff, other like to restore/ or fix cars, other like to do casting (ever heard of garage kits?).
Jehan-reznor wrote: Love all the smoke screen techno babble talk, not all people have side business purely for the money, some because they like to built stuff, other like to restore/ or fix cars, other like to do casting (ever heard of garage kits?).
The number of people who have a "side business" where they do not care about turning a profit is so miniscule as to not even be considered relevant.
A guy who restores cars for himself with no concern about net expenses has a hobby, not a business.
And, nobody is casting models in bulk form in the basement while turning a net loss out of the goodness of their hearts to help the gaming community. If sales got to the point that they weren't at least breaking even, only an incredibly small percentage of casters would continue to do it for anyone but themselves and a few friends.
Jehan-reznor wrote: Love all the smoke screen techno babble talk, not all people have side business purely for the money, some because they like to built stuff, other like to restore/ or fix cars, other like to do casting (ever heard of garage kits?).
I tackled home injection molding out of a love for plastic model kits. It is very difficult but has lots of intangible rewards. I still work a job also. I just love the idea of making an idea in to a reality in the medium I prefer. The per-hour pay is absolute crap, to be honest. And some of the interactions I have endured have made me want to quit. In fact that has been very demoralizing.
But I have a plastic machine and mold making equipment, so for the rest of my life I will be tinkering around with it. If I hit the lottery I would be back out in the shop trying to see what I can do next within a few weeks.
No way I will ever be good at running a business, but I am OK with that.
Biggest trade since avalanche today:
Three sales listed within a minute, attributed to yesterday, for 11+10+1 Mio GBP (4.5 Mio shares)
One buy listed today for 2.5 Mio GBP (500k shares).
Background: Nomad, biggest Investor, sold almost all its shares, not found anymore on the list of shareholders above 3% of total shares (before it was above 9%). Sale began 5th and ended 6th, notified 6th and 7th March.
Kroothawk wrote: Biggest trade since avalanche today:
Three sales listed within a minute, attributed to yesterday, for 11+10+1 Mio GBP (4.5 Mio shares)
One buy listed today for 2.5 Mio GBP (500k shares).
Background: Nomad, biggest Investor, sold almost all its shares, not found anymore on the list of shareholders above 3% of total shares (before it was above 9%). Sale began 5th and ended 6th, notified 6th and 7th March.
Sean_OBrien wrote: That creates the small upticks followed by large drops I mentioned previously. If a company like Nomad kicks out a chunk of stocks, the result ends up being a few dozen traders following suit and another 20% drop. Panic ensues, and down it goes till no one wants to buy and no one can afford to sell.
I don't think it works like that. If an institutional client is selling, someone else is buying. You don't always know the reason why someone is selling. Sometimes they are selling because they have to and it's not a reflection of their outlook on the company. If a fund is getting redemption requests, they have to sell.
Remember.. these funds are the guys who elected the current management team. They aren't going to dump simply because another fund is dumping. Guys that size would likely call up a few brokers and try to do block sales if they had given up. There isn't sufficient liquidity to sell it directly to the market and if they did, they would get a crap price. If you are seeing a fund sell their position from an Electronic trading platform, they are unsophisticated and/or likely doing it out of fear. You'd want to take the opposite side of that transaction 9 times out of 10.
I do not think the decline is over but the fact a big seller of that size was cleaned out is a very positive development as is the reversal candle on the weekly chart. If it had managed to close over 518 or it's 8 week moving average (which isn't too far away) i would have recommended getting out of any short positions. As is, I haven't changed my bearish opinion on the chart though. I still want to see divergences.
Kroothawk wrote:Biggest trade since avalanche today:
dereksatkinson wrote:Avalanches go up?
Pretty sure he meant, "Biggest trade since the avalanche happened today".
Personally, I don't know very much about the stock market, and what I do know I don't like very much, so I won't venture to have an opinion, apart from wondering what reason GW had to not pay out dividends this quarter. Didn't they take out a loan once just so they would be able to?
Nomad down to 506,280 shares (1.59%) or less. Everything else on the list same as 20th January 2014. So 2.5 Mio Nomad shares bought by a person or institution not yet on the radar, owning less than 3% currently.
20th January 2014:
Summary:
Artemis Investment Management LLP reached current level 15th April last year.
Schroders plc reached current level 10th January 2014.
Quantum Partners LP from Cayman Islands having 3.69% at 10th January 2014 is again gone from the records, so below 3%.
March 2013
Oh, and guess which part of this graph I mean when talking about the avalanche
It was NOT the most shares traded in a single day since the Jan 16th earnings. That is not factually correct.
Jan 29th over 1.25 million shares traded vs this 500k print you are so excited about.
Also.. When you look at a real chart you can see it "gapped lower" at the open. So there wasn't an avalanche. An avalanche would look like the S&P did back in 08-09 where you had a constant grind lower over many months that simply wouldn't end until you had a washout.
dereksatkinson wrote: It was NOT the most shares traded in a single day since the Jan 16th earnings. That is not factually correct.
Jan 29th over 1.25 million shares traded vs this 500k print you are so excited about.
So as a presumed professional you would say that 1.25 mio shares traded on January 29th are more than 2 mio shares traded 6th March (according to official notification on GW website)?
And that the biggest investor for years dropping from 9.8% to 1.59% or less in 2 days is peanuts?
I think that shows quite well on what basis all your personal insults against other posters in this thread are based.
I must admit I'm in no way interested in financial trading. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how intrinsic it is to the world we live in, but it doesn't 'float my boat' if that makes sense.
Having said that, if I was to invest a little bit of spare cash....how would you go about doing it? Is GW a safe option?
From a hobbyists point of view, we may not like how they run their business. We may not like their continual price increases, their meddling in the game and the way that there seems to be a new philosophy that every new release needs to be bigger, better and (more importantly) more powerful than what has come before.....but the fact remains that, collectively as hobbyists, we don't vote with our feet and we continue to support GW either with direct sales, 3rd party sales or even down to bits websites that indirectly support GW (those parts have to come from somewhere, right?)
So, the logic of this completely-uneducated-in-financial-matters hobbyist is that they may be a relatively safe bet......right?
Hmm, falling share price, falling revenue, falling profit, major investors fleeing, management going on power shrinking the company in a growing market .... sounds like a safe bet (/sarcasm)
This thread needs killing. It seems to be just here for Kroot to go off on one of his usually anti-GW rants. More than half the comments he makes are just inaccurate and the ones that are to some degree accurate are laced with such biased language that it makes the information some what of dubious value.
Add in the personal attacks he makes against anyone with more knowledge than him and it makes this thread even more worthless.
fullheadofhair wrote: This thread needs killing. It seems to be just here for Kroot to go off on one of his usually anti-GW rants. More than half the comments he makes are just inaccurate and the ones that are to some degree accurate are laced with such biased language that it makes the information some what of dubious value.
Add in the personal attacks he makes against anyone with more knowledge than him and it makes this thread even more worthless.
Time to kill this. What exactly is it achieving?
I don't have to go round looking up how GW shares are trading. It's useful for that purpose at least. I mostly ignore everything else.
I'm quit enjoying it as a record of what's been going on. It's certainly interesting times for gwplc. I'm mostly just skimming the bickering between DA and kroot. Somewheres in here there's some useful discussion.
I think it's been funny to watch them talk past each other.
On the one hand you've got the disillusioned GW hobbyist who sees falling stock prices as the long-due punishment for GW's sins. He revels in every new share price drop and large volume sale. He "knows" that GW's boneheaded moves over the past few years are finally catching up to them.
On the other hand you've got the finance guy sporting the stereotypical arrogance of the industry who looks at the stock price like a weather phenomenon. This thing here means it has more value to lose. That thing there means it is fairly stable. But there was a 50% off sale in a supermarket in Bangladesh so we're looking at another Great Depression within the next 12 months.
Well it gives insight in the share market status of GW and it shows the state of mind of some of the posters, one camp says this means the end of GW and the other goes "This is good news!"
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
You do realise that he is talking about the same leading indicators that failed spectacularly in 2008 and plunged the world's economy in the gakky state that it is now, right?
I'd put as much faith in those as I do in the tarot reader in our public channel morning show...
Some of us were aware in 2007 of the impending crisis that broke in 2008. Rumours in the market, and so on.
However a recession is defined as two successive quarters of falling GDP, so it of course cannot be identified except in retrospect.
dereksatkinson is absolutely correct, though, about the various "special measures" that are propping up the different economies. Quantitative easing, the low interest rate, in the UK we have a huge amount of cash being pumped out to consumers through PPI mis-selling repayments, and the "have some free money to buy a house" scheme.
The real job market is very soft. Despite inflation easing, real incomes are well down from what they were before the crisis. Welfare payments are down for low earners, and taxes are up for medium to high earners.
Tom Kirby is on record saying that GW's business is not affected by the economic cycle. I think he is wrong, though, as GW are now in the price range of luxury goods compared to a lot of other wargames. For example a Knight Titan kit and the codex cost £110. That is a lot of money to put a single model on your tabletop.
dereksatkinson wrote: It was NOT the most shares traded in a single day since the Jan 16th earnings. That is not factually correct.
Jan 29th over 1.25 million shares traded vs this 500k print you are so excited about.
So as a presumed professional you would say that 1.25 mio shares traded on January 29th are more than 2 mio shares traded 6th March (according to official notification on GW website)?
And that the biggest investor for years dropping from 9.8% to 1.59% or less in 2 days is peanuts?
I think that shows quite well on what basis all your personal insults against other posters in this thread are based.
You refered to Friday's print as "Biggest trade since avalanche".. It was most certainly not the most volume traded since the "avalanche". It's factually incorrect.
I also said that if a big investor unloaded, it would be in a block and would not drive the price down. Not coincidentally, the stock rallied rather impressively. I never said someone unloading 8% of a company would be peanuts.. Just that they wouldn't panic out and cause an avalanche like you and several other posters were claiming would happen.
Tom Kirby is on record saying that GW's business is not affected by the economic cycle. I think he is wrong, though, as GW are now in the price range of luxury goods compared to a lot of other wargames. For example a Knight Titan kit and the codex cost £110. That is a lot of money to put a single model on your tabletop.
I have no idea if Tom Kirby actually believes that or not since it could be CEO speak. I hope it's CEO talk because "luxury retail" is most certainly impacted by the global economy. Go to a resort town during a recession and then during a period of growth and the differences are staggering.
Kroothawk wrote:Biggest trade since avalanche today:
Three sales listed within a minute, attributed to yesterday, for 11+10+1 Mio GBP (4.5 Mio shares)
One buy listed today for 2.5 Mio GBP (500k shares).
Background: Nomad, biggest Investor, sold almost all its shares, not found anymore on the list of shareholders above 3% of total shares (before it was above 9%). Sale began 5th and ended 6th, notified 6th and 7th March.
dereksatkinson wrote: It was NOT the most shares traded in a single day since the Jan 16th earnings. That is not factually correct.
Jan 29th over 1.25 million shares traded vs this 500k print you are so excited about.
So as a presumed professional you would say that 1.25 mio shares traded on January 29th are more than 2 mio shares traded 6th March (according to official notification on GW website)?
And that the biggest investor for years dropping from 9.8% to 1.59% or less in 2 days is peanuts?
I think that shows quite well on what basis all your personal insults against other posters in this thread are based.
You refered to Friday's print as "Biggest trade since avalanche".. It was most certainly not the most volume traded since the "avalanche". It's factually incorrect. (...)
Other than to show that kroothawk has no idea how the stock market trades? Nothing really.
The quote shows that I clearly referred to the 4.5 Mio shares sold, which is more than your quoted 1.25 Mio shares.
Esp. as the rest of the post details how the biggest GW investor dropped out almost completely within 2 days.
If you still claim that to every expert, 1.25 Mio shares are obviously more than 4.5 Mio shares, then I need no further credentials for your expertise.
BTW I collected some more info on this investor drop out in this thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/583671.page Unfortunately, one moderator found this not news-worthy and I can't repeat the complicated formating in that first post which took me considerable time to compose.
Seriously dude.. stop. This is getting kind of pathetic because you REALLY don't understand some very basic information here. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules.
Seriously dude.. stop. This is getting kind of pathetic because you REALLY don't understand some very basic information here. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules.
I think the biggest thing he seems to miss is that if one big investor sold a bunch of shares, then someone had to buy them.
Seriously dude.. stop. This is getting kind of pathetic because you REALLY don't understand some very basic information here. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules.
I think the biggest thing he seems to miss is that if one big investor sold a bunch of shares, then someone had to buy them.
rigeld2 wrote: So how does someone go from 3,131,194 shares to less than 1,620,001 (really, less than a million) and not be more than 1.25 million shares sold?
I mean - the math seems pretty simple here.
The issue here is that we are talking apples and oranges. He doesn't understand the definitions and is in effect misrepresenting what happened.
It wasn't traded on the exchange. It was a block trade.
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Saldiven wrote: I think the biggest thing he seems to miss is that if one big investor sold a bunch of shares, then someone had to buy them.
Indeed. Someone bought a very large % of the company all at once in one block. When you have someone come in with fresh capital, it's going to cause the stock to bounce, which it has.
Mind you.. I haven't changed my intermediate term outlook yet based on this. I think we probably bounce and revisit these levels again and will watch for divergences to develop on the weekly.
I doubt it was a share buyback. I don't recall GW having that kind of program announced and seeing how they do trade publicly on the london exchange, I think that would have been public knowledge.
Now.. you could have seen a broker shop the stock around to do a block and get various investors to do it at a discounted price, but that would have likely resulted in the stock dropping if they were just providing liquidity. Since we are talking about a relatively large % of the company changing hands, I think you are most likely getting people who actually want to own the stock and not lease/rent it. Someone who is wanting to just trade the stock wouldn't be doing it this way because of the SIZE of the trade. Whoever bought is likely stuck in it for 12-18 months.
rigeld2 wrote: So how does someone go from 3,131,194 shares to less than 1,620,001 (really, less than a million) and not be more than 1.25 million shares sold?
I mean - the math seems pretty simple here.
The issue here is that we are talking apples and oranges. He doesn't understand the definitions and is in effect misrepresenting what happened.
It wasn't traded on the exchange. It was a block trade.
I don't understand the relevance.
More than 2.5m shares changed hands. How is that not more than 1.25m?
dereksatkinson wrote: Indeed. Someone bought a very large % of the company all at once in one block.
Actually, Nomad sold at least 8% of GW stock in 2 days. Such a major change has to be notified and published on the GW investor website. Until today, no other new investor reached the 3% threshold that has to be notified. And no current investor with more than 3% GW shares bought a single share in the last few weeks. Which proves that you are wrong.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/ http://investor.games-workshop.com/shareholder-statistics/ Of course this doesn't rule out an army of strawmen buying shares for, say, HasBro, and made public when HasBro thinks it is time to buy from all strawmen.
rigeld2 wrote: I don't understand the relevance.
More than 2.5m shares changed hands. How is that not more than 1.25m?
You should have learned from the Cyprus desaster that he never admits a stupid mistake but rather answers with calling all posters in this thread stupid and incompetent again and again. Classic troll.
Kroothawk wrote: You should have learned from the Cyprus desaster that he never admits a stupid mistake but rather answers with calling all posters in this thread stupid and incompetent again and again. Classic troll.
That is not trolling when he is right more than wrong. Also, that behavior is something not unknown to you either - a tad pot and kettle - except you are often wrong. Some of the things you have said in this thread display such a lack of the fundamental knowledge needed that often your comments are worse than worthless as they divert time and energy away from the issues at hand.
The pair of you need to quit responding to each other as this is starting to get quite tiresome.
Derek: Any chance of explaining the difference between a block trade and trades on the exchange, and also how what the divergences are you talk about - idiot speak please, I'm not er, comfortable with money, unless I'm handing it to someone for toys.
fullheadofhair wrote: That is not trolling when he is right more than wrong. Also, that behavior is something not unknown to you either - a tad pot and kettle - except you are often wrong. Some of the things you have said in this thread display such a lack of the fundamental knowledge needed that often your comments are worse than worthless as they divert time and energy away from the issues at hand.
The pair of you need to quit responding to each other as this is starting to get quite tiresome.
Thanks for another of your "Hey you are so stupid and your posts worse than worthless please stop posting in the thread you started" posts.
They are a big help in adding content and politeness to this thread.
moogy wrote: Having said that, if I was to invest a little bit of spare cash....how would you go about doing it? Is GW a safe option?
No. There's a serious risk that the share price will plummet again once the full year financial info comes out. Maybe it won't, but you need to remember that the 25% drop wasn't just someone spooking the horses, it was a response to what was happening in the concrete part of Games Workshop.
winterdyne wrote: Derek: Any chance of explaining the difference between a block trade and trades on the exchange, and also how what the divergences are you talk about - idiot speak please, I'm not er, comfortable with money, unless I'm handing it to someone for toys.
When you have large trades where you are talking about a single entity needing to unload a % of a company, the seller will go to their broker and indicate that they intend on selling X number of shares. So the broker will go out over several days/weeks and talk to their clients looking for a bid (in other words a buyer). It's the broker's job is to NOT disclose who the seller is or how much they actually have to sell. Someone will indicate that they would be interested in owning X number of shares and the broker will mark them down. Once they have enough people lined up, they call around again with a price, the buyers confirm that they are willing to buy it and the trade is done. It is NOT done on the open market or on an exchange. The fact of the matter is, they couldn't have divested that large of a % of the company if they didn't shop it around like they did.
Kroothawk wrote: You should have learned from the Cyprus desaster that he never admits a stupid mistake but rather answers with calling all posters in this thread stupid and incompetent again and again. Classic troll.
That is not trolling when he is right more than wrong. Also, that behavior is something not unknown to you either - a tad pot and kettle - except you are often wrong. Some of the things you have said in this thread display such a lack of the fundamental knowledge needed that often your comments are worse than worthless as they divert time and energy away from the issues at hand.
The pair of you need to quit responding to each other as this is starting to get quite tiresome.
Wait... Have I been actually proven wrong on anything?
moogy wrote: Having said that, if I was to invest a little bit of spare cash....how would you go about doing it? Is GW a safe option?
No. There's a serious risk that the share price will plummet again once the full year financial info comes out. Maybe it won't, but you need to remember that the 25% drop wasn't just someone spooking the horses, it was a response to what was happening in the concrete part of Games Workshop.
I wouldn't go so far as to predict another drop like that. It's entirely possible but expectations are now much lower for the company and that definitely matters.
dereksatkinson wrote: Indeed. Someone bought a very large % of the company all at once in one block.
Actually, Nomad sold at least 8% of GW stock in 2 days. Such a major change has to be notified and published on the GW investor website. Until today, no other new investor reached the 3% threshold that has to be notified. And no current investor with more than 3% GW shares bought a single share in the last few weeks. Which proves that you are wrong.
Ummm no.. What you are pointing to is the equivalent of a form 4 filing here in the USA. You simply don't understand some very basic concepts. Someone had to been on the other end of the deal.
To be abundantly clear. The only possible way the LSE could be showing only 700k shares traded over the past 3 days and a company to have divested 1.6 million+ shares is to have done a negotiated trade off the exchange. That is exactly what took place here. Look at the volume numbers for GAW. Nomad is reporting a trade that was done off the exchange most likely over a period of several weeks.
winterdyne wrote: Derek: Any chance of explaining the difference between a block trade and trades on the exchange, and also how what the divergences are you talk about - idiot speak please, I'm not er, comfortable with money, unless I'm handing it to someone for toys.
When you have large trades where you are talking about a single entity needing to unload a % of a company, the seller will go to their broker and indicate that they intend on selling X number of shares. So the broker will go out over several days/weeks and talk to their clients looking for a bid (in other words a buyer). It's the broker's job is to NOT disclose who the seller is or how much they actually have to sell. Someone will indicate that they would be interested in owning X number of shares and the broker will mark them down. Once they have enough people lined up, they call around again with a price, the buyers confirm that they are willing to buy it and the trade is done. It is NOT done on the open market or on an exchange. The fact of the matter is, they couldn't have divested that large of a % of the company if they didn't shop it around like they did.
Sure - but does that change the size of the transaction? One investor dropped ~2m shares. That's larger than the 1.25m you said was the largest.
Hence my confusion.
fullheadofhair wrote: That is not trolling when he is right more than wrong. Also, that behavior is something not unknown to you either - a tad pot and kettle - except you are often wrong. Some of the things you have said in this thread display such a lack of the fundamental knowledge needed that often your comments are worse than worthless as they divert time and energy away from the issues at hand.
The pair of you need to quit responding to each other as this is starting to get quite tiresome.
Thanks for another of your "Hey you are so stupid and your posts worse than worthless please stop posting in the thread you started" posts.
They are a big help in adding content and politeness to this thread.
and, pray tell, what else are you supposed to say to someone who is consistently getting it wrong in their own thread?
I mean, come on Kroot, you didn't even know what "automatic" meant when you were looking at share transactions.
rigeld2 wrote: Sure - but does that change the size of the transaction? One investor dropped ~2m shares. That's larger than the 1.25m you said was the largest.
Hence my confusion.
It was a negotiated trade that never actually hit the exchange. If it had hit the exchange, you would see that kind of volume on the chart. The actual trade could have been done over 3-4 weeks. Hell.. The decision to sell could have been made on January 16th.
and, pray tell, what else are you supposed to say to someone who is consistently getting it wrong in their own thread?
If you have a trade that was bigger than the combined monthly volume for the past 2 months, that someone is reporting to have been done on a single day, you know it's a block trade. Block trades aren't done with retail clients so you know it was another institution or potentially several institutions taking down that block. I can understand there being confusion based on vocabulary but the basic concept is still plain as day. It's pretty much common sense to anyone who has a basic understanding of how the market functions.
rigeld2 wrote: Sure - but does that change the size of the transaction? One investor dropped ~2m shares. That's larger than the 1.25m you said was the largest.
Hence my confusion.
It was a negotiated trade that never actually hit the exchange. If it had hit the exchange, you would see that kind of volume on the chart. The actual trade could have been done over 3-4 weeks. Hell.. The decision to sell could have been made on January 16th.
So essentially the trade could've happened over any period of time, so the volume is "diluted"?
I can see that. Thanks.
rigeld2 wrote: Sure - but does that change the size of the transaction? One investor dropped ~2m shares. That's larger than the 1.25m you said was the largest.
Hence my confusion.
It was a negotiated trade that never actually hit the exchange. If it had hit the exchange, you would see that kind of volume on the chart. The actual trade could have been done over 3-4 weeks. Hell.. The decision to sell could have been made on January 16th.
So essentially the trade could've happened over any period of time, so the volume is "diluted"?
I can see that. Thanks.
Oh.. without question this was done over weeks. As someone who has participated in these blocks, I can assure you that a piece that large was shopped for a while. It would have likely required a high level of due diligence on behalf of the purchasers and it wouldn't be someone that is just going to hold it for a bounce.
dereksatkinson wrote: To be abundantly clear. The only possible way the LSE could be showing only 700k shares traded over the past 3 days and a company to have divested 1.6 million+ shares is to have done a negotiated trade off the exchange. That is exactly what took place here. Look at the volume numbers for GAW. Nomad is reporting a trade that was done off the exchange most likely over a period of several weeks.
As said, the LSE has actually shown a sale of 4.5 Mio shares in three parts within a minute on 6th March, that's why I checked the GW investors page to see what happened.
Three sales listed within a minute, attributed to yesterday, for 11+10+1 Mio GBP (4.5 Mio shares)
winterdyne wrote: I'm quit enjoying it as a record of what's been going on. It's certainly interesting times for gwplc. I'm mostly just skimming the bickering between DA and kroot. Somewheres in here there's some useful discussion.
I imagine them locked in eternal conflict on a ruined world, like the Star Trek episode with the black / white and white / black aliens.
FacelessMage wrote: In the grim darkness of stock information there is only war.
the difference is I have made $100k on talking with Derek and he is a professional in the industry. I currently own $50k in GW. Am I down? Yes. Am I selling? No. Their price will come up. Buy GW now and you will have more money at the end of the year. Most likely.
FacelessMage wrote: In the grim darkness of stock information there is only war.
the difference is I have made $100k on talking with Derek and he is a professional in the industry. I currently own $50k in GW. Am I down? Yes. Am I selling? No. Their price will come up. Buy GW now and you will have more money at the end of the year. Most likely.
I have seen Derek being caught up in irrelevancies, and ignoring evidence that contradicts his stance.
Sorry, but the Cypriot digression did not help Derek's aura of reliability. It seemed to be present to bolster an appeal to authority rather than having any bearing on GW's situation.
Frankly, I would trust neither Derek nor Kroot as my investment broker - but Kroot at least does not claim to have that skill set.
When I look and see that, yes, more than one and a half million has been sold off, while Derek is avoiding that portion of the topic, or claiming that, no, four million is the same as one and a half million... I have my doubts as to the validity of his claims. And when I see that stock was not purchased by a single entity (meaning that ownership of the stock has grown more diffuse) then I do suspect that the larger shareholders are selling off.
Kroot does have an ax to grind - but ignoring the numbers because of the source... not always a good decision.
I will agree that stock prices are a poor indicator of how a business is doing, and I will be interested in seeing how GW stock does when the next report comes out - but at this point I do not see GW taking measures to fix the problems that led to this situation.
Sales are down, and their reaction has been to cut back further on retail.
So, much of the price on the stock will ride on whether or not GW provides dividends - and if they do provide dividends, whether they have done so at the cost of development in the company. If it does impact upon development... then any gain in the stock prices will be temporary, but would make a good point to sell held stock.
I am certainly not making plans to buy into GW. I suspect the old sock underneath the mattress is a safer investment, at least in the short to midterm.
Mostly... I think that GW made a mistake in being publicly held.
TheAuldGrump wrote: When I look and see that, yes, more than one and a half million has been sold off, while Derek is avoiding that portion of the topic, or claiming that, no, four million is the same as one and a half million... I have my doubts as to the validity of his claims. And when I see that stock was not purchased by a single entity (meaning that ownership of the stock has grown more diffuse) then I do suspect that the larger shareholders are selling off.
That's not what Derek is saying. Kroot is saying that shares have simply been sold, as if they're gone, because they're disappeared from the 3% owners list that GW have to report. Derek is saying that they haven't disappeared - for stocks to have been sold, someone has to have bought them. They're not gone, just that whoever bought wasn't one investor buying that huge chunk of shares, as then that person would be on the 3% owner list. The stock is still there, and will go up again if you look at GW's stock trends.
At least that's how I've been following it. I don't share Dereks outlook, as I believe like many GW has trimmed to the bone. There's nothing left to trim to raise profitability, and prices are at breaking point. But Kroot has been getting quite a lot wrong in his own thread, then calling anyone who disagrees a troll, which is pretty douchy behaviour.
I have no knowledge of the stock market.
However, if investment companies are selling the bulk of their shares in GW plc, , and they are being bought by smaller speculative investors.
Does this show a loss in confidence in GW plc in the market?
Has this happened, and does it mean a 'vote of no confidence' by the investment company in GW plc?
What has GW plc done to address the fall in sales volumes and profit?
TheAuldGrump wrote: When I look and see that, yes, more than one and a half million has been sold off, while Derek is avoiding that portion of the topic, or claiming that, no, four million is the same as one and a half million... I have my doubts as to the validity of his claims. And when I see that stock was not purchased by a single entity (meaning that ownership of the stock has grown more diffuse) then I do suspect that the larger shareholders are selling off.
That's not what Derek is saying. Kroot is saying that shares have simply been sold, as if they're gone, because they're disappeared from the 3% owners list that GW have to report. Derek is saying that they haven't disappeared - for stocks to have been sold, someone has to have bought them. They're not gone, just that whoever bought wasn't one investor buying that huge chunk of shares, as then that person would be on the 3% owner list. The stock is still there, and will go up again if you look at GW's stock trends.
No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
I'd be curious as to what rate those shares were sold at, since if it's done off exchange, the price is presumably negotiated between parties in private and they could have gone for anything. That number (which we'll never know) will probably tell us a lot more about investor confidence than the current public price. For instance did they get a buyer right away at the public price or did they need to slash the price drastically just to cut their losses? Did they get more than the expected?
As for the stock going back up; that depends on what you read into the trends. You can argue that it's gone with the markets (as Derek is doing) and that when the markets pick up then so will GW. But that theory only works if you ignore everything you know about GW as a company. Namely that most of the growth from the previous stock price correlate with partnerships with other companies and that GW themselves have said that they don't know what's wrong or how to fix it.
-Loki- wrote:That's not what Derek is saying. Kroot is saying that shares have simply been sold, as if they're gone, because they're disappeared from the 3% owners list that GW have to report.
Erm ... do you really believe what you are posting? Then you fell for an obvious strawman argument by Derek.
Herzlos wrote:No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
Thanks. Wasn't so difficult after all, was it?
Now get's back to a civil discussion of facts and not fall for trolling or strawman arguments. The topic is difficult and cladestine enough.
BTW if you want to see how experts can contribute to a thread without insulting everyone, see how weeble1000 contributes to the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread.
Lanrak wrote: What has GW plc done to address the fall in sales volumes and profit?
Fired a lot of staff, closed a lot of HQs outside of the UK and consolidated pretty much everything for their worldwide stores there, pretty sure they closed down a ton of stores in non English speaking countries.
That is on top of the axing of Games Day and the tighter restrictions on trade sales.
So yeah, the have done a lot to address the falling sales, just not anything that will help. Regardless of the global economy or anything else I think that is what it comes down to, the current management are disconnected from reality and don't seem to have any idea how to stop sales falling. Which will mean the next report is just as awful as this one was, which means the stock price will fall again.
Lanrak wrote: What has GW plc done to address the fall in sales volumes and profit?
Fired a lot of staff, closed a lot of HQs outside of the UK and consolidated pretty much everything for their worldwide stores there, pretty sure they closed down a ton of stores in non English speaking countries.
That is on top of the axing of Games Day and the tighter restrictions on trade sales.
So yeah, the have done a lot to address the falling sales, just not anything that will help. Regardless of the global economy or anything else I think that is what it comes down to, the current management are disconnected from reality and don't seem to have any idea how to stop sales falling. Which will mean the next report is just as awful as this one was, which means the stock price will fall again.
I will be massively surprised if GW's full year financials are better than the half year. I expect they will be worse. The trend GW is on has nothing to do with stock price. Screw stock price. Take a look at a 30% drop in profits in the half year financials from a company that has be pushing product like never before and slashing costs to clean up the balance sheet. GW has arguably been spinning the numbers for a while now to make their financials look...not terrible...and pacifying its large investors with regular dividend payments (even to the extent of taking on debt to pay dividends).
Every financial report I have seen in the last 4 years has had GW constantly shifting around its reporting to make the numbers look good. The fact that GW can't make its half year financials look anything other than wretched and did not have the confidence to pay a dividend (knowing exactly what the repercussions would be), is a really bad sign in my opinion. If the stock price were rising like gangbusters I still wouldn't want to invest in GW because the company is obviously in decline. Is it dying...never before have I said yes, but now I would tentatively say "maybe."
GW is sadly following a pattern that game companies have followed in the past.
And one thing that Derek has not contemplated is what effect the GW v CHS appeal will have on perceptions of the company. That appeal will be wrapped up in a year at most. It could be done as soon as the next financial report, but probably not. GW losing the CHS trial was bad for the company, but not so obviously bad to have a direct impact on the investor perceptions of the company. But a favorable result for CHS in the appeal will not go unnoticed.
If CHS is successful in its appeal it will likely make broad new case law. It will hit mainstream legal media in a big way. It will percolate to mainstream media. It will put a seal on the case with a big W for CHS and trash GW's goodwill with customers. GW could possibly face further litigation from CHS with literally millions in potential damages that GWdoes not have money on hand to pay. Technically, could GW pay a 5 million dollar judgment...sure, but GW does not have the spare cash on hand for a judgment like that to not be a huge problem.
If CHS succeeds in its appeal, it will give the board clear cut reasons to force out Tom Kirby. Gill Stevenson has already been let go. GW can't fire her twice.
So screw what the stock market says. I look at what the FLGS and the 7th circuit says about GW. Only a fool would say that GW is not facing significant challenges at the moment that, if handled badly, could cause significant harm to the company. GW is walking around with a huge target on its face. It survives despite efforts of competitors to harm, maim, and kill it. GW showing weakness has only and will only inspire competitors to push harder.
Herzlos wrote:No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
Thanks. Wasn't so difficult after all, was it?
Now get's back to a civil discussion of facts and not fall for trolling or strawman arguments. The topic is difficult and cladestine enough.
BTW if you want to see how experts can contribute to a thread without insulting everyone, see how weeble1000 contributes to the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread.
Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
Herzlos wrote:No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
Thanks. Wasn't so difficult after all, was it?
Now get's back to a civil discussion of facts and not fall for trolling or strawman arguments. The topic is difficult and cladestine enough.
BTW if you want to see how experts can contribute to a thread without insulting everyone, see how weeble1000 contributes to the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread.
Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
Which ones? It doesn't seem like the math works out on that.
Herzlos wrote:No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
Thanks. Wasn't so difficult after all, was it?
Now get's back to a civil discussion of facts and not fall for trolling or strawman arguments. The topic is difficult and cladestine enough.
BTW if you want to see how experts can contribute to a thread without insulting everyone, see how weeble1000 contributes to the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread.
Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
Which ones? It doesn't seem like the math works out on that.
No idea. I was just asking if that were a possibility. I haven't analyzed any numbers or anything. How often do the major share holders update the percentage of a company's stock they own?
dereksatkinson wrote: To be abundantly clear. The only possible way the LSE could be showing only 700k shares traded over the past 3 days and a company to have divested 1.6 million+ shares is to have done a negotiated trade off the exchange. That is exactly what took place here. Look at the volume numbers for GAW. Nomad is reporting a trade that was done off the exchange most likely over a period of several weeks.
As said, the LSE has actually shown a sale of 4.5 Mio shares in three parts within a minute on 6th March, that's why I checked the GW investors page to see what happened.
Three sales listed within a minute, attributed to yesterday, for 11+10+1 Mio GBP (4.5 Mio shares)
Were they automatic? lol
It was a negotiated trade. You are just seeing the final print. That is why when you look at a chart, you don't see 4.5 million shares traded. You see 500k shares traded. Chart below.
Spoiler:
Also.. Why have to stopped mentioning the share price kroot? Doesn't fit the narrative? I see 524.50 today. It's gone straight up since your doomsday prediction.
Sorry, but the Cypriot digression did not help Derek's aura of reliability. It seemed to be present to bolster an appeal to authority rather than having any bearing on GW's situation.
You didn't understand what I was saying then. That was a comment about the weakness of the European economy to help explain how sovereign debt has successfully brought down European banks. Problems in your debt market caused stocks to be sold off indiscriminately. And yes, Europe is not in the best shape right now economically despite the rosy narrative your politicians keep touting... http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/uk/poverty-is-driving-people-to-sell-their-internal-organs-on-the-black-market-1.260168
TheAuldGrump wrote: Frankly, I would trust neither Derek nor Kroot as my investment broker - but Kroot at least does not claim to have that skill set.
I'm not a broker. I am also not making recommendations to purchase GW stock (I don't like the intermediate term outlook)
TheAuldGrump wrote: Mostly... I think that GW made a mistake in being publicly held.
Why? It gives them access to capital they wouldn't normally have. Ever tried raising money for a private company? It's not easy.
Lanrak wrote: I have no knowledge of the stock market.
However, if investment companies are selling the bulk of their shares in GW plc, , and they are being bought by smaller speculative investors.
Saldiven wrote: Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
If this was a block (which it certainly looks like) it would have to be institutional clients.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saldiven wrote: No idea. I was just asking if that were a possibility. I haven't analyzed any numbers or anything. How often do the major share holders update the percentage of a company's stock they own?
I don't know about the UK but in the USA you have 3-4 business days from the initial transaction. We can say with a high level of certainty that they didn't shop this around to your grandma or other retail investors though. For something this size, they had to go to institutions.
No idea. I was just asking if that were a possibility. I haven't analyzed any numbers or anything. How often do the major share holders update the percentage of a company's stock they own?
I was hoping that would provoke someone to actually do the math.
That's how I get the probabilities for new rules in my Wargame. I tell players the rules are being changed to X and get a bunch of spreadsheets in response. Then I can really write the rules.
I think the future stock price will depend on if GW issues a dividend next time around. I assume that most of the institutional investors are holding the stock for the dividend payout, not for an expected rise in share price or love of toy soldiers.
If GW does not pay out their dividend then the institutional investors have little reason to hold onto the stock and will move their money elsewhere.
We wrote: I think the future stock price will depend on if GW issues a dividend next time around. I assume that most of the institutional investors are holding the stock for the dividend payout, not for an expected rise in share price or love of toy soldiers.
If GW does not pay out their dividend then the institutional investors have little reason to hold onto the stock and will move their money elsewhere.
I suspect they'll pay a dividend in July, even if they have to mortgage away some of the company. What will be most telling is revenue, profit and volume. I suspect all those numbers will be down or flat. Smart investors will see those numbers, basically a year of flat or declining sales and get out. July to December 2013 saw Escalation, Stronghold Assault, Tyranids, portions of Eldar and Tau. January to June for 2014 is what, Titans, IG, Orks and maybe 7th edition. I'd venture to say that 2013 is stronger in releases than 2014?
We wrote: I think the future stock price will depend on if GW issues a dividend next time around. I assume that most of the institutional investors are holding the stock for the dividend payout, not for an expected rise in share price or love of toy soldiers.
If GW does not pay out their dividend then the institutional investors have little reason to hold onto the stock and will move their money elsewhere.
I disagree. No one should be expecting a dividend. It was my understanding that the last dividend was supposed to be considered a one off.
Also.. The only analyst on the street that is covering the name has a 680.00 price target on the company so, capital appreciation seems to be the story here. I think that is a perfectly good reason to own a stock.
I also don't like to see so many blanket statements out there about what institutional investors should and shouldn't do. You have no idea what their goals are. Some funds want income and other want capital appreciation. It depends on who their clients are and what's best for them.
We wrote: I think the future stock price will depend on if GW issues a dividend next time around. I assume that most of the institutional investors are holding the stock for the dividend payout, not for an expected rise in share price or love of toy soldiers.
If GW does not pay out their dividend then the institutional investors have little reason to hold onto the stock and will move their money elsewhere.
I disagree. No one should be expecting a dividend. It was my understanding that the last dividend was supposed to be considered a one off.
Also.. The only analyst on the street that is covering the name has a 680.00 price target on the company so, capital appreciation seems to be the story here. I think that is a perfectly good reason to own a stock.
I also don't like to see so many blanket statements out there about what institutional investors should and shouldn't do. You have no idea what their goals are. Some funds want income and other want capital appreciation. It depends on who their clients are and what's best for them.
Historically GW have paid good dividends: Overview of the last few years about an 8% yield, and I believe that it has been commented on in the past that a number of the instituational investors were pension funds etc and were attracted by the good steady pay outs. That's a memory rather than something I can immediately source though.
dereksatkinson wrote: Also.. Why have to stopped mentioning the share price kroot? Doesn't fit the narrative? I see 524.50 today. It's gone straight up since your doomsday prediction.
It's picked back up a bit but it's still nowere near the 745 in January, or even reached the 547 after it tanked. at least it's somewhat levelled off though.
Hopefully that's it pretty stable until the next report.
richred_uk wrote: ......
Historically GW have paid good dividends: Overview of the last few years about an 8% yield, and I believe that it has been commented on in the past that a number of the instituational investors were pension funds etc and were attracted by the good steady pay outs. That's a memory rather than something I can immediately source though.
Recent history notes dividends but prior to that GW went relatively long periods without them IIRC. There was a Chairman's statement that also stated GW stock was for long term sustainable growth and specifically not to be seen as a quick return. Sorry I also don't have this to quote directly but I'm 99% certain my memory isn't failing me as well.
Most of the large investors have held GW stock for a long time.
dereksatkinson wrote: Also.. Why have to stopped mentioning the share price kroot? Doesn't fit the narrative? I see 524.50 today. It's gone straight up since your doomsday prediction.
It's picked back up a bit but it's still nowere near the 745 in January, or even reached the 547 after it tanked. at least it's somewhat levelled off though.
Hopefully that's it pretty stable until the next report.
You need to look at what I said in context.
If you go back and look at the predictions being made, certain members were saying that if one of the large holders decided to sell, it would cause the stock to plummet. I said that if someone was wanting to sell that much of the stock, you'd see a block trade followed by a bounce. That is exactly what's happened. Those shares never reached the exchange.
The reason why they had to do a large block is simple. If they sold shares on the open market, within a few days they would have to report those sales. Upon seeing that a large shareholder is now a seller, speculators would drive the price lower, knowing that a larger holder is having to sell. That would have given Nomad a worse price because it would scare away professionals from buying. So instead, they go to a broker who puts together a block trade over a period of several weeks. Then they close the deal, they reveal they are out to the general public and someone else now owns their shares and voting rights.
richred_uk wrote: ......
Historically GW have paid good dividends: Overview of the last few years about an 8% yield, and I believe that it has been commented on in the past that a number of the instituational investors were pension funds etc and were attracted by the good steady pay outs. That's a memory rather than something I can immediately source though.
Recent history notes dividends but prior to that GW went relatively long periods without them IIRC. There was a Chairman's statement that also stated GW stock was for long term sustainable growth and specifically not to be seen as a quick return. Sorry I also don't have this to quote directly but I'm 99% certain my memory isn't failing me as well.
Most of the large investors have held GW stock for a long time.
Looks like we might both be right. They stopped paying out after 2007 (IIRC was this when LotR stopped selling) until 2010. Before that there were regular dividends, but I don't have the share prices to hand to calculate the relevant yields. My memory says that they were considered reasonably good yields.
Looks like we might both be right. They stopped paying out after 2007 (IIRC was this when LotR stopped selling) until 2010. Before that there were regular dividends, but I don't have the share prices to hand to calculate the relevant yields. My memory says that they were considered reasonably good yields.
You've also changed CEOs over that period. Mark Wells was there for 5 years prior to Kirby taking over last January. So it's not like Kirby has a history of having the company pay out dividends consistently.
Saldiven wrote: Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
1.) I never said it has dispersed to the wind, it is just below the 3% threshold where it appears on the GW investor website. Probably on purpose, so that the hostile take over agent is hidden until the very last moment. Actually I expect a new investor to emerge one day, but I expect him to be actively involved in future GW decisions, trying to gather power before getting rid of Tom Kirby as CEO/chair. Also possible they wait for his retirement.
2.) All current investors above 3% shares total are listed on the GW investor page:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/shareholder-statistics/ None of them has bought a single share in March.
There have been around 31 Mio shares for a long time, so they didn't disappear either.
Also CEO Tom Kirby is very eager to pay dividends (and chair Tom Kirby approves), because that way shareholder Tom Kirby gets an extra million GBP per year, more than double his salary. So not paying himself money and clearly risking the devaluation of his shares (as happened on 16th January) is done in dire need. In the last annual report he boasted that the 15-20 mio GBP dividends (no time to look up the exact numbers now) are "truely surplus" with no reasonable way to spend them within the company. Seems the condition of the company was not as good as he tried to make us believe. As many of us have predicted.
Just for the record: With standard management decisions and standard marketing, it would be quite easy to give GW a sustainable growth again within 2 years. Just not with Tom Kirby. Almost all problems GW has are homemade and artificial, caused by a continuing series of unprovoked WTF decisions. But as Kirby has systematically deleted all feedback loops within the company, firing brains and hiring yes-men, and because he is CEO AND chair AND third-biggest shareholder, such a change for the better can only come from an outside investor.
Also: Most of the investors have been there for a long time, see the 2011 chart in this thread (can't reproduce the complicated formating because the thread was sadly locked):
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/583671.page or http://theback40k.blogspot.de/2011/05/who-owns-games-workshop.html You will clearly see that all big investors reduced their shares:
Nomad: 23.8% in 2011 and years before, now 1.59% or less
Investec 18.5 in 2011 and years before, now 9.7%
Phoenix 13.5% in 2011 and years before, now 5.9%
Shroeder Investment 9.0% in 2011 and years before, now below 3%, probably gone (not the same as Schroders plc!)
Kirby became third largest shareholder because everything above him crumbled.
Most changes happened when Wells left about a year ago. Even some new minor investors appearing.
Saldiven wrote: Is it possible that rather than having been dispersed to the wind (ie., the masses of smaller investors) that the other existing large percentage owners bought up those shares?
1.) I never said it has dispersed to the wind, it is just below the 3% threshold where it appears on the GW investor website. Probably on purpose, so that the hostile take over agent is hidden until the very last moment.
mmmh - I am not sure I agree with this. The %age at which you have to put up or shut up when it comes to a take-over includes all shares in which you have a controlling or associated interest in. .
Generally, the accumulation of sufficient interest to take over a company without anyone knowing is the stuff of films and novels and very much the exception in the business world. Not only would you need to keep under the 3% but you would have to adhere to the rules of what constitutes a controlling or associated entity. That is waaaaay too much cloak and dagger stuff for a company the poxy size of GW.
Now, I haven't dealt with this is a long time (10+yrs at least) but if you go and look up the UK take-over rules before you post you will find out a lot more.
I am sorry but really you are talking total bollocks in the last 3 or 4 posts. With so much wrong it is getting harder to correct so much of it as it would require more research to be able to quote source and I have been out of this game for a while - uh, I see DA has already had a go at the main points.
TheAuldGrump wrote: When I look and see that, yes, more than one and a half million has been sold off, while Derek is avoiding that portion of the topic, or claiming that, no, four million is the same as one and a half million... I have my doubts as to the validity of his claims. And when I see that stock was not purchased by a single entity (meaning that ownership of the stock has grown more diffuse) then I do suspect that the larger shareholders are selling off.
That's not what Derek is saying. Kroot is saying that shares have simply been sold, as if they're gone, because they're disappeared from the 3% owners list that GW have to report. Derek is saying that they haven't disappeared - for stocks to have been sold, someone has to have bought them. They're not gone, just that whoever bought wasn't one investor buying that huge chunk of shares, as then that person would be on the 3% owner list. The stock is still there, and will go up again if you look at GW's stock trends.
No, I don't think Kroot is saying that they are gone, he's saying they've dispersed. This 8% of stock was sold and according to the owners list no other buyer has increased or gone above the 3% threshold, which means a single owner of 8% has been replaced by at least 3 owners of less than 3%, which is being taken to mean that there is less confidence in the stock.
I don't think anyone thinks the stock has vanished or been bought by GW, but the fact is that GW's biggest private investor has dumped a lot of stock and it's not been bought in a single chunk by a single investor, as the owners list doesn't show it.
I'd be curious as to what rate those shares were sold at, since if it's done off exchange, the price is presumably negotiated between parties in private and they could have gone for anything. That number (which we'll never know) will probably tell us a lot more about investor confidence than the current public price. For instance did they get a buyer right away at the public price or did they need to slash the price drastically just to cut their losses? Did they get more than the expected?
As for the stock going back up; that depends on what you read into the trends. You can argue that it's gone with the markets (as Derek is doing) and that when the markets pick up then so will GW. But that theory only works if you ignore everything you know about GW as a company. Namely that most of the growth from the previous stock price correlate with partnerships with other companies and that GW themselves have said that they don't know what's wrong or how to fix it.
This is how I read Kroot's statements as well.
It seems pretty obvious to me that if stock was sold then it needed a buyer, or, in this case, at least three buyers. The term 'should go without saying' is also pretty obvious - but some people really need to have it said.
Ah well... I guess that I will never qualify for my White Knight's membership card and decoder ring....
The Auld Grump, maybe the comic is The Snark Knight Returns?
*EDIT* I very much doubt that a hostile takeover is in the offing - I am not certain at this point if many companies would want to take it over.
I do think that Kirby would welcome a merger or takeover by a large enough entity to consider taking GW over, but I just do not see the attraction for a larger entity to do so.
The TSR takeover by WotC was an unusual occurrence - and had more to do with the fact that TSR was going bankrupt, and could be bought for pennies on the dollar and the fact that the upper management of WotC at the time were all gamers and game designers. (Even so, Dancey's description of the end of TSR is pretty sad reading. A warehouse full of unsellable product, that was still listed on the inventory sheets as though they held full value. Orders for production that far exceeded the projected sales of that product. *Cough* Dragon Dice. *cough, cough*)
Dancey blamed the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.
The question may be - is Kirby any better than Lorraine Williams?
1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.
Kroothawk wrote: 1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.
Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.
Kroothawk wrote: 1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.
Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.
No.. the problem is he is constantly making stuff up and portraying it as fact. Not understanding the the investment company and the plc are the same thing is a clear sign of ignorance. So was the automatic trades issue. He has not once admitted to have made a mistake.
Kroot, for your own good, take some time off discussing this topic. You aren't well versed enough to speak about it without having to resort to lying..
Kroothawk wrote: 1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.
Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.
No.. the problem is he is constantly making stuff up and portraying it as fact. Not understanding the the investment company and the plc are the same thing is a clear sign of ignorance. So was the automatic trades issue. He has not once admitted to have made a mistake.
Kroot, for your own good, take some time off discussing this topic. You aren't well versed enough to speak about it without having to resort to lying..
He didn't pull the Dobson card. Edited by a moderator.
Kroothawk wrote: 1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now) 2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible 3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.
Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.
No.. the problem is he is constantly making stuff up and portraying it as fact. Not understanding the the investment company and the plc are the same thing is a clear sign of ignorance. So was the automatic trades issue. He has not once admitted to have made a mistake.
Kroot, for your own good, take some time off discussing this topic. You aren't well versed enough to speak about it without having to resort to lying..
He didn't pull the Dobson card. Edited by a moderator.
You know, it's not improbable for one person in the finance/investment industry to know another person in the finance/investment industry.
For example, you probably wouldn't believe that I was acquainted with the last head of Washington Mutual before it went under; Kerry Killinger. I used to work for the company and met him on several occassions during annual meetings. Later, when Citi bought our division of WaMu, I met Charles Prince who was CEO of that company while I worked there when I had to give a presentation at the home office. They're just regular human beings that happen to have really high paying jobs.
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
dereksatkinson wrote: All this before he stated that Schroders PLC and Schroders Investments were different entities.
Funny how you make things up:
I claimed that "Shroeder Investment Management Limited" and "Schroders plc" are different entities because the names don't share a single common word. Makes sense until you assume and/or find out that GW screwed up their official records big time.
BTW as anyone familiar with economics can tell both have a different legal status, one being a Public Limited Company (PLC) and the other being a Private Limited Company by shares (Ltd.). No expert in economics would claim both are the same.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.
dereksatkinson wrote: All this before he stated that Schroders PLC and Schroders Investments were different entities.
Funny how you make things up:
I claimed that "Shroeder Investment Management Limited" and "Schroders plc" are different entities because the names don't share a single common word. Makes sense until you assume and/or find out that GW screwed up their official records big time.
BTW as anyone familiar with economics can tell both have a different legal status, one being a Public Limited Company (PLC) and the other being a Private Limited Company by shares (Ltd.). No expert in economics would claim both are the same.
The implication you were making is that Schoders investment management had blown out it's shares and some other company had come in that wasn't affiliated with them. There was absolutely no need to say that.
GW issues the press release but the forms for disclosure of ownership (like a form 4 would be in the USA) are actually the responsibility of the entity that holds it. How Schoders wants to disclose ownership is entirely up to them. The same structures exist here in the USA with LLCs being the management company and LPs being the partnership. You can't read anything into whether they do the disclosure as an LLC, LP, PLC, or Ltd. It's just how they choose to account for it.
This isn't an issue of "economics". It's the legal disclosures that owners with controlling interest in a company must make. If they fail to disclose ownership, there could be severe consequences including losing their voting rights. That is why I have major doubts about the cloak and dagger narrative you've been touting.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.
I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.
I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?
Because FW let you pay in your currency, rather than GW, that has pricing by region.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
As GW does not publish exact figures, I can only give you wild and exciting conjecture (seems appropriate in this thread).
In their latest half-year report "All other sales businesses" (defined as: Forge World, Black Library, Digital Sales and Warhammer World) took in £7.3 million. From the previous year in the report, it looks like the second half-year is slightly smaller, so we'll call it an even £14 million for the year (was just below 13 million in 2012/13). Or about 10-12ish percent of total revenue.
How much each of these make up of that number would only be speculation, but I think it's relatively fair to say Warhammer World is minimal, while BL is probably the biggest. So, I don't know... FW revenue at about 5 or 6 million pounds per year? 7 maybe? Something like that.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
As GW does not publish exact figures, I can only give you wild and exciting conjecture (seems appropriate in this thread).
In their latest half-year report "All other sales businesses" (defined as: Forge World, Black Library, Digital Sales and Warhammer World) took in £7.3 million. From the previous year in the report, it looks like the second half-year is slightly smaller, so we'll call it an even £14 million for the year (was just below 13 million in 2012/13). Or about 10-12ish percent of total revenue.
How much each of these make up of that number would only be speculation, but I think it's relatively fair to say Warhammer World is minimal, while BL is probably the biggest. So, I don't know... FW revenue at about 5 or 6 million pounds per year? 7 maybe? Something like that.
Alright, so it is clearly a profitable segment of their business. Thanks for the response!
Im guessing digital sales will account for a larger percentage of sales in years to come. Especially if they can work out some of the kinks in the digital codex, like the system that is comparable to army builder at the end of the books. I for one would be more willing to buy digital content if it provided apps like army builder does or that is updated on a regular basis. I think that is one thing that I love about privateer press. They really have the digital rulebooks and list creators worked out nicely.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.
Using mathHAMMER I just did some price comparisons accounting for the difference in currency between Australia and the United States. In Australia the valkarie cost 110AUD, and converting to AUD in the United states the Valkarie would only cost roughly 73AUD. That is around 150% mark up! However, there were some products such as the baneblade with much smaller mark ups. The baneblade in Australia costs 165 AUD and converting that to AUD in the United States would be 155AUD, which is only about a 6% mark up. I'm not exactly sure what the logic is there, but I can see now how my armies would come solely from forgeworld if I lived in Australia.
I plan on going to London for a week in spring. I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.
tjnorwoo wrote: Using mathHAMMER I just did some price comparisons accounting for the difference in currency between Australia and the United States. In Australia the valkarie cost 110AUD, and converting to AUD in the United states the Valkarie would only cost roughly 73AUD. That is around 150% mark up! However, there were some products such as the baneblade with much smaller mark ups. The baneblade in Australia costs 165 AUD and converting that to AUD in the United States would be 155AUD, which is only about a 6% mark up. I'm not exactly sure what the logic is there, but I can see now how my armies would come solely from forgeworld if I lived in Australia.
I plan on going to London for a week in spring. I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.
The reason the baneblade is such a small mark up is because it didn't go up down here with the Apoc release when it was repackaged to include all the variants. Since like.. the start of 2013 GW have been bringing worldwide pricing more in line with each other, the problem is it's in line with the Oz pricing. I think the Warriors of chaos general from the Feb '13 release cost the same in both regions. Over here our reaction to it was 'meh, more of the same pricing' over there the world was falling.
tjnorwoo wrote: Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money
In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.
I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?
Essentially for foreigners FW let you pay in GBP converted by your bank at a modern exchange rate, whereas GW's local currency rates are usually wildly out of sync (Australian stuff is about double - it's cheaper to buy from GWUK in GBP and ship it across the world than it is to buy in a store there. At least it was before GW banned that practice).
For the UK stuff it's because GW's prices have shot up dramatically whilst FW's have stayed pretty static.
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tjnorwoo wrote: I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.
Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.
But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.
Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.
But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.
While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.
Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)
The TSR takeover by WotC was an unusual occurrence - and had more to do with the fact that TSR was going bankrupt, and could be bought for pennies on the dollar and the fact that the upper management of WotC at the time were all gamers and game designers. (Even so, Dancey's description of the end of TSR is pretty sad reading. A warehouse full of unsellable product, that was still listed on the inventory sheets as though they held full value. Orders for production that far exceeded the projected sales of that product. *Cough* Dragon Dice. *cough, cough*)
Dancey blamed the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.
The question may be - is Kirby any better than Lorraine Williams?
Actually, TSR was lucky that Peter Adkinson (then CEO of WotC) loved D&D and the D&D brand, and bought it for the sole purpose of saving it. Ryan Dancey noted in that same article, how even at pennies on the dollar, it was not a good buy from a strictly financial sense.
Is Kirby better than Lorraine Williams, no. He is actually worse. All the troubles GW are experiencing are 100% self-inflicted.
As for some of the speculations on stock. I wouldn't touch this stock with a thirty foot pole right now. The company is already in very deep trouble and they have run out of avenues to cover it up. This is a good reason so many large shareholders are dumping the stock. Three obvious warning signs:
1.) Double-digit sales decline was pretty universal globally. Looking at the actual market itself shows an average 8% CAGR since 2008 (most attributed to board games, but direct GW competition is showing growth while they fail).
2.) The fast reduction in CoH (cash on hand), resulting from an increased product release schedule - yet we still saw a double-digit decline in sales. On a side note, quite a long time ago, an investor much smarter than myself taught me to look at these two signs for signs of a company in trouble. This advice has been so accurate over my 25 years of investing it isn't even funny.
3.) The decision to move R&D from an expense item (where every company in the world reports it) to a cost of sales item (where the only company I have ever seen do this is GW). While I won't elaborate on why I think they did it, I will say that doing things like this usually is a result of trying to cover some really bad forthcoming information.
As an aside, strictly looking at the information available as a business man and not a hobbyist, GWs last financials CLEARLY show a management team who doesn't know what they are doing. Being that they mentioned their 1-man retail store operations, then blamed the drop in sales on the rapid transition to this. One doesn't need more than a middle-school education to understand this is a STUPID business strategy. Yes, it is stupid and it shows a complete lack of understanding for the retail environment yet claiming this is your main channel for getting people into the hobby. Retail is about hours of operation - it is a golden rule of retail. GW is going directly counter to that law and thus why they are failing miserably.
GW is showing all the signs of a company in very serious trouble and they are running out of avenues to cover it. They are acting more like Gil Amelio did at Apple just before Steve Jobs came back - throwing half-baked stuff out the door and hoping something sticks. Hope is not a strategy. When Steve came back, and the reason he saved Apple, was he focused the company around a strategy then delivered killer products along this strategy. GWs current strategy is simply MORE SALES. Great to say, except for one thing - they don't know HOW to get those sales anymore except by throwing things out the door and hoping something sticks.
Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.
But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.
While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.
Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)
They only really stock popular bits in the store; you might get lucky but it's a small range. Agreed if you order early enough and hang about you can get stuff cast to order (I think before 11am gets it to you for about 2pm too, but it may vary). They'll also do free shipping if you order it in the store, but I've no idea if that applies to overseas customers.
Hobby Games Up 20% in 2013 Fifth Consecutive Growth Year
The hobby game market grew 20% in 2013, according to a new report in ICv2’s Internal Correspondence #84, an increase over the 15% growth rate in 2012. Games have now been growing for a half decade; 2013 was the fifth consecutive growth year, with the average growth rate over that period nearly 15% per year.
The hobby game market has nearly doubled since 2008, according to the report.
The increase in sales has provided profits that are being plowed back into the industry at the retail level, with growth in retail square footage, expansion of play space, and investment in better play experiences.
The TSR takeover by WotC was an unusual occurrence - and had more to do with the fact that TSR was going bankrupt, and could be bought for pennies on the dollar and the fact that the upper management of WotC at the time were all gamers and game designers. (Even so, Dancey's description of the end of TSR is pretty sad reading. A warehouse full of unsellable product, that was still listed on the inventory sheets as though they held full value. Orders for production that far exceeded the projected sales of that product. *Cough* Dragon Dice. *cough, cough*)
Dancey blamed the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.
The question may be - is Kirby any better than Lorraine Williams?
Actually, TSR was lucky that Peter Adkinson (then CEO of WotC) loved D&D and the D&D brand, and bought it for the sole purpose of saving it. Ryan Dancey noted in that same article, how even at pennies on the dollar, it was not a good buy from a strictly financial sense.
And thus my comment on 'the upper management of WotC being gamers and game designers' - so no correction was needed there - it was already included in the portion that you quoted.
Is Kirby better than Lorraine Williams, no. He is actually worse. All the troubles GW are experiencing are 100% self-inflicted.
Debatable - TSRs problems were also self inflicted - and at least GW does not have products that cost more to produce than the product wholesales for.
Push comes to shove... both are pretty horrible CEOs - and both are self deluding micromanagers.
As for some of the speculations on stock. I wouldn't touch this stock with a thirty foot pole right now. The company is already in very deep trouble and they have run out of avenues to cover it up. This is a good reason so many large shareholders are dumping the stock. Three obvious warning signs:
1.) Double-digit sales decline was pretty universal globally. Looking at the actual market itself shows an average 8% CAGR since 2008 (most attributed to board games, but direct GW competition is showing growth while they fail).
2.) The fast reduction in CoH (cash on hand), resulting from an increased product release schedule - yet we still saw a double-digit decline in sales. On a side note, quite a long time ago, an investor much smarter than myself taught me to look at these two signs for signs of a company in trouble. This advice has been so accurate over my 25 years of investing it isn't even funny.
3.) The decision to move R&D from an expense item (where every company in the world reports it) to a cost of sales item (where the only company I have ever seen do this is GW). While I won't elaborate on why I think they did it, I will say that doing things like this usually is a result of trying to cover some really bad forthcoming information.
No disagreement there, at all. They have been hiding decreasing sales by decreasing costs - and they have pretty much run out of costs that they can safely cut.
As an aside, strictly looking at the information available as a business man and not a hobbyist, GWs last financials CLEARLY show a management team who doesn't know what they are doing. Being that they mentioned their 1-man retail store operations, then blamed the drop in sales on the rapid transition to this. One doesn't need more than a middle-school education to understand this is a STUPID business strategy. Yes, it is stupid and it shows a complete lack of understanding for the retail environment yet claiming this is your main channel for getting people into the hobby. Retail is about hours of operation - it is a golden rule of retail. GW is going directly counter to that law and thus why they are failing miserably.
GW is showing all the signs of a company in very serious trouble and they are running out of avenues to cover it. They are acting more like Gil Amelio did at Apple just before Steve Jobs came back - throwing half-baked stuff out the door and hoping something sticks. Hope is not a strategy. When Steve came back, and the reason he saved Apple, was he focused the company around a strategy then delivered killer products along this strategy. GWs current strategy is simply MORE SALES. Great to say, except for one thing - they don't know HOW to get those sales anymore except by throwing things out the door and hoping something sticks.
Like TSR - GW has fallen out of communication with their audience - but show no signs of trying to reopen communications.
And thus my comment on 'the upper management of WotC being gamers and game designers' - so no correction was needed there - it was already included in the portion that you quoted.
Sorry, didn't mean for it to come off as a correction so much as an addition to your comment.
TheAuldGrump wrote: Debatable - TSRs problems were also self inflicted - and at least GW does not have products that cost more to produce than the product wholesales for.
Push comes to shove... both are pretty horrible CEOs - and both are self deluding micromanagers.
I agree they were both bad. However, Lorraine Wiliiams did come into a company that was in rough shape from the Blume brothers and fixed things. Ten years later, however, after things were all going her way, she ran it into the ground another way.
Kirby, on the other hand, has been lucky to have been involved with GW during their high-growth years. At least TSR can say they didn't have the internet. GW seems to be completely ignoring that the internet exists as a channel to such communication. They seem to intentionally be ignoring the outside world, and making sure they only hire people who live in the current GW bubble (i.e., that anything doesn't exist).
GW of today, reminds me more of Kodak. Few people know that Kodak could own every single camera used in the world today since they actually invented the original digital camera. But management saw the numbers from camera film and let it go since "digital was not going to be the future". Kodak was over $60 billion in sales then. Today, they are forecasting just over $2 billion after emerging from bankruptcy and they are no longer in the photography business at all.
GW is making some of the exact same mistakes as Kodak and TSR did.
Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.
But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.
While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.
Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)
Wayshuba wrote: ...Kirby, on the other hand, has been lucky to have been involved with GW during their high-growth years. ...
Ton Kirby was General Manager when GW were expanding in the 90's, led the management buyout, then took the company public later on and has run the company profitably since then.
Unpopular with customers, out of touch, mercilessly driven to squeeze every penny from hobbyists maybe and Tom Kirby may be allot of other things (successful?) but lucky doesn't seem to be one of them.
Saying he has been lucky is to dismiss the obvious success that GW has been, whether he is the right man to take the company forward at this point is open to debate what isn't debateable is that he's done a good job in the past (commercially speaking). I say he took the risk and therefore got the reward he deserved, but then I also say that GW should be making Epic 30k so what do I know......?
Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...
Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...
Yep, now they're not even on the table. No wonder the rumors about Fantasy getting a new update and ditching Wood Elves and Brets are circulating.
But, 40k is still on top, even after the massive success of X-Wing.
I wouldn't be surprised if all this movement is in part due to the big drop a little while ago. An investor wanting to invest in something else that's up and coming.
All in all, unless there's another massive drop, I'm not too concerned personally. There are all sorts of things that happen to stocks for reasons far more arbitrary than any listed in this topic.
Before we get all excited over those positions and numbers let's all remember that there are some inherent flaws to that data and it is an incomplete data source. Now, I am not saving there arent issues and that WFB isnt suffering but those numbers are not giving a complete picture.
As regards dates for Financial Statements, GW year end is I believe May. The release of the 10K to the public domain can be somewhere between 1 and 3 months.
fullheadofhair wrote: Before we get all excited over those positions and numbers let's all remember that there are some inherent flaws to that data and it is an incomplete data source. Now, I am not saving there arent issues and that WFB isnt suffering but those numbers are not giving a complete picture.
As regards dates for Financial Statements, GW year end is I believe May. The release of the 10K to the public domain can be somewhere between 1 and 3 months.
True - but it would not surprise me if Fantasy is falling behind.
We will see how the numbers shape up or shake up in a few months.
Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...
Don't Get Sidetracked on ICV2 Again !! It's crap data.
Let me explain how it's done....again. I go out and find 20 people that work in game distributors and stores, and ask them "So, what miniature game is doing the best right now? Ok, how about second best? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Ok, awesome, thanks for your input."
After I get 20 people who have some connection to gaming, I look at who got the most votes. Easiest way is to give them 5 pts for a 1st best, 4 for a 2nd best, etc. Total it up and we have our list. I'ts a method of statistics called Ranked Data.
The Problems:
1. It's based on opinions, not numbers.
2. It's not based on actual sales numbers. For instance, Guywhopacksboxes had to get a whole bunch of 7.95 blisters of infinity down from a shelf yesterday, but only four 40k starter sets. "Man, Infinity is hot! Give it a #1". Despite the fact that the 40k sets add up to a higher dollar amount.
3. It doesn't take into account the product sold by GW, or by the Trade accounts that GW sells directly too. So even if it was ranking based on sales numbers (which it isn't), it would exclude at least 80% of the GW sales in the US.
Think of it this way. You want to know the best 40k tournament army to take to Nova or Adepticon. You find the data by walking into 10 GW stores and having the 12 year olds tell you their favorite armies and units. That's how IC2 gathers it's data.
You know - I remember a whole lot of D&D 4e fanbois saying the exact same thing when ICV2 reported that Pathfinder was selling as well as D&D, then better...
But if that were really the case then D&D 5e would already be in the works!
Oh, wait....
Anecdotal evidence is not something that should be disregarded because it is anecdotal - and in this case... I am more likely to believe ICV2, because what they say is in accord with my own observations. That WH40K is still doing well, but that Fantasy is falling to the wayside.
You want 'crap data'? Listen to folks that are too vested in a product to see that other products are catching up, or have passed their favored product in sales.
And sometimes the supporting numbers are within spitting distance of the anecdotes - folks are saying that GW's sales are not what they were, but increased prices coupled with decreased costs are keeping them buoyant. But that the increased release schedule is not producing the numbers of sales that were expected.
Then GW releases their half year report... and it looks like the anecdote brigade had the right of it....
mikhaila wrote: Don't Get Sidetracked on ICV2 Again !! It's crap data.
Let me explain how it's done....again. I go out and find 20 people that work in game distributors and stores, and ask them "So, what miniature game is doing the best right now? Ok, how about second best? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Ok, awesome, thanks for your input."
(...)
Think of it this way. You want to know the best 40k tournament army to take to Nova or Adepticon. You find the data by walking into 10 GW stores and having the 12 year olds tell you their favorite armies and units. That's how IC2 gathers it's data.
Somehow I doubt that Alliance and all US FLEGs are owned by 12 year olds who love to make up data.
mikhaila wrote: Don't Get Sidetracked on ICV2 Again !! It's crap data.
Let me explain how it's done....again. I go out and find 20 people that work in game distributors and stores, and ask them "So, what miniature game is doing the best right now? Ok, how about second best? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Ok, awesome, thanks for your input."
(...)
Think of it this way. You want to know the best 40k tournament army to take to Nova or Adepticon. You find the data by walking into 10 GW stores and having the 12 year olds tell you their favorite armies and units. That's how IC2 gathers it's data.
Somehow I doubt that Alliance and all US FLEGs are owned by 12 year olds who love to make up data.
The point is that it is merely an opinion poll with a small sample size.
If the stores in question were asked to produce actual unit sale and dollar sale data for each game system over a given time period, it would have more validity.
Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...
Don't Get Sidetracked on ICV2 Again !! It's crap data.
Let me explain how it's done....again. I go out and find 20 people that work in game distributors and stores, and ask them "So, what miniature game is doing the best right now? Ok, how about second best? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Ok, awesome, thanks for your input."
After I get 20 people who have some connection to gaming, I look at who got the most votes. Easiest way is to give them 5 pts for a 1st best, 4 for a 2nd best, etc. Total it up and we have our list. I'ts a method of statistics called Ranked Data.
The Problems:
1. It's based on opinions, not numbers.
2. It's not based on actual sales numbers. For instance, Guywhopacksboxes had to get a whole bunch of 7.95 blisters of infinity down from a shelf yesterday, but only four 40k starter sets. "Man, Infinity is hot! Give it a #1". Despite the fact that the 40k sets add up to a higher dollar amount.
3. It doesn't take into account the product sold by GW, or by the Trade accounts that GW sells directly too. So even if it was ranking based on sales numbers (which it isn't), it would exclude at least 80% of the GW sales in the US.
Think of it this way. You want to know the best 40k tournament army to take to Nova or Adepticon. You find the data by walking into 10 GW stores and having the 12 year olds tell you their favorite armies and units. That's how IC2 gathers it's data.
I don't disagree with you Mikhaila, though I do think that there is some value in the ICv2 data, as opposed to none, once you appreciate the inherent flaws in the methodology and the limitations. It is essentially anecdotal information, but ostensibly collected informally from more retailers that the average gamer has contact with. In the absence of decent data it amounts to little more than reading the informal opinions of several different FLGS owners on the internet.
For example, although it would be foolish to expect to win a tournament by asking 12 year olds what their favorite armies and units are, that study (flawed though it may be for the purposes of developing a winning tournament list) will at least give you an idea about what 12 year olds at 10 different GW stores think is cool. You could use the data to give you an idea about what army to buy for your 12 year old cousin as long as you understood how it was collected.
I think they point Weeble made is the point several people have been making but no so elequantly. there is nothing wrong with using data that has a flaw with it providing you factor in the flaw. All data unless it is 100% sample size is by definition flawed :-D
The report has its uses, it gives a flavor and potential some idea of what is going on in the market. It cannot however be used in definitive terms and certainly not that product X is beating WFB is sales simply because:
1) If as Mikhaila says it isn't based of hard sale numbers from the store then that isn't numerical data - data gathered on someones opinion of what is selling is not the most reliable of things.
2) If GW data was included in this I would hazard a guess that WFB would still wipe the floor with the other games in sales.
This is just what is selling in FLGS. You cannot really extrapolate the data further with any hope of some degree of accuracy. A Gw store is obviously not the same animal as a FLGS so the comparison is not possible.
All you can say this is:
1) In FLGS only it SEEMS like other products are over taking WFB.
2) In the wider market, taking into account the limited data in GW's annual report, it SEEMS that GW products are losing market share in a purported growing market to maturing competitors and some new entrants that are yet to grow into maturing companies. Unfortunately, with no real hard data ($'s and #'s) from many of the privately held companies only broad brush estimation is possible.
3) Internet sales for all companies are growing as prices increase. Factoring in the impact of this is almost impossible.
There are other conclusions I could add but don't have time and those are the ones that immediately sprung to mind.
1.) This extensive ICv2 discussion is off topic here and belongs to the ICv2 thread that I linked to:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/584632.page 2.) The main ICv2 study was not based on short interviews with random people, but accompanied by hard numbers by e.g. the biggest US distributor Alliance, who (at least for a long time) also distributed GW products. And Alliance is a major source for many many FLGS in USA. Saying that Alliance numbers are as irrelevant as a random 12 year old boys ramblings is nonsense. BTW every retailer can get the study for free here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28110.html
Platuan4th wrote: Actually, it's collected from sales data from stores, manufacturers, and distributors. The "interview" includes them sending in hard data from their computers. You can e-mail ICv2 yourself and ask them if you want.
3.) USA is not plastered with GW stores like the UK. In USA you have states without a single GW store, and the rest is reduced to sorry one-man-stores. Expecting one-man-stores in every second state to bear the mass of US-wargaming sales is unrealistic.
On topic: Last two days saw almost no trading. Share price still around 505p, a tad above the psychological 500 threshold.
Kroot, that's not a study, I've downloaded a previous edition out of curiosity and it is essentially just more of the same stuff as you see on the website. Certainly no 'hard' data to speak of, might have been a little bit more in depth IIRC, but. nothing of real substance.
As for icv2 being off topic? Information pertinent to the state of the industry that GW operates exclusively in, which speaks to it's company performance and couches it in a context, the same performance which is going to directly dictate it's future reports and share price?
That's off topic? I think we must have different ideas on what constitutes off topic.
Also, what psychological threshold are you referring to? I've not come across that before, for people making a living from the market, that's just a number. You wouldn't be investing your opinion into factual statements now would you, you little tinker?
Kroothawk wrote: Actually, it's collected from sales data from stores, manufacturers, and distributors. The "interview" includes them sending in hard data from their computers. You can e-mail ICv2 yourself and ask them if you want.
Not all FLGS get their items from Alliance. They get them from GW directly. Many stores actually do not have items sold by SKU or manufacturer, something I still find staggering, and those that do are not overly keen to dish that data. As I have said, I find the report interesting to read on a thematic basis but certainly dont regard it as a definitive source.
3.) USA is not plastered with GW stores like the UK. In USA you have states without a single GW store, and the rest is reduced to sorry one-man-stores. Expecting one-man-stores in every second state to bear the mass of US-wargaming sales is unrealistic.
Actually, if memory serves, many of the large population areas and areas where there is concentrated people and shopping areas have stores. Some however maybe an 1hr or more away! I would hazard a guess that if there is no GW and/ or a FLGS that internet shopping would be where it is at. We don't know to what degree internet stores are included in the ICv2 numbers. Until one of us can actually be bothered to go and find what the exact sample size is and the channels the sample occupy in relation to the overall population you have to be careful what conclusions you draw from the data.
Come on now, that is basic math and statistical analysis.
On topic: Last two days saw almost no trading. Share price still around 505p, a tad above the psychological 500 threshold.
Psychological to you. Not to someone who may own stock and is comfortable with their investment. Making stuff up again I am afraid.
TheAuldGrump wrote: You know - I remember a whole lot of D&D 4e fanbois saying the exact same thing when ICV2 reported that Pathfinder was selling as well as D&D, then better...
But if that were really the case then D&D 5e would already be in the works!
Oh, wait....
Anecdotal evidence is not something that should be disregarded because it is anecdotal - and in this case... I am more likely to believe ICV2, because what they say is in accord with my own observations. That WH40K is still doing well, but that Fantasy is falling to the wayside.
You want 'crap data'? Listen to folks that are too vested in a product to see that other products are catching up, or have passed their favored product in sales.
And sometimes the supporting numbers are within spitting distance of the anecdotes - folks are saying that GW's sales are not what they were, but increased prices coupled with decreased costs are keeping them buoyant. But that the increased release schedule is not producing the numbers of sales that were expected.
Then GW releases their half year report... and it looks like the anecdote brigade had the right of it....
The Auld Grump
Actually, anecdotal evidence should always be disregarded if you are actually trying to do statistical analysis of something other than ranked data. You believe ICV2 because they agree with you, but that doesn't make it valid. And anecdotal evidence can come to correct conclusions. A stopped clock also tells the correct time twice a day.
I just get annoyed when people take ICV2 as gospel. I know how their data is arrived at, and have read ICV2 for about 20 years. It's part of my industry. But it isn't something people should point to as proving anything. It's held in high regard at times, when it has all the validity of an unconfirmed rumor telling us about the next army coming out.
mikhaila wrote: Don't Get Sidetracked on ICV2 Again !! It's crap data.
Let me explain how it's done....again. I go out and find 20 people that work in game distributors and stores, and ask them "So, what miniature game is doing the best right now? Ok, how about second best? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Ok, awesome, thanks for your input."
(...)
Think of it this way. You want to know the best 40k tournament army to take to Nova or Adepticon. You find the data by walking into 10 GW stores and having the 12 year olds tell you their favorite armies and units. That's how IC2 gathers it's data.
Somehow I doubt that Alliance and all US FLEGs are owned by 12 year olds who love to make up data.
Which isn't something i said at all. Just trying to come up with an analogy that a 40k gamer would appreciate
I still don't think that the professionals answering the poll have no more competence and insight than random 12 year old customers.
As someone interested in rumours I am used to deal with incomplete information. Just because it is incomplete doesn't mean it is worthless to me.
Nobody is calling it worthless, people are simply saying treat it with the appropriate amount of worth ie don't take it as gospel, merely as an interesting tidbit which is in no way conclusive.
Take it from me, as someone who has held an equivalent position to a lot of FLGS owners in a different industry, if someone called me up and asked me a bunch of questions that I had to answer off the top of my head, even with the profound knowledge I'd have of my own company and the business it was doing, I absolutely guarantee that I wouldn't get every question right, and some I might get dramatically wrong, because your perception gets twisted by what is in your face at that minute, and only sometimes when you sit down and look at the hard data do you realise how far off your perception is from reality.
azreal13 wrote: Nobody is calling it worthless, people are simply saying treat it with the appropriate amount of worth ie don't take it as gospel, merely as an interesting tidbit which is in no way conclusive.
Take it from me, as someone who has held an equivalent position to a lot of FLGS owners in a different industry, if someone called me up and asked me a bunch of questions that I had to answer off the top of my head, even with the profound knowledge I'd have of my own company and the business it was doing, I absolutely guarantee that I wouldn't get every question right, and some I might get dramatically wrong, because your perception gets twisted by what is in your face at that minute, and only sometimes when you sit down and look at the hard data do you realise how far off your perception is from reality.
Actually, Mikhaila is calling it useless, and that it should be disregarded.
He did, in fact, state so outright, and gave his reasons for doing so.
I disagree with his reasons, but he did support his premise.
I suspect, but cannot prove, that he disbelieves the data in part because it disagrees with his personal observations, while I agree with it because it does agree with my observations.
Which means... that we have access to different markets - his data is likely accurate for where he is, and mine is likely accurate for where I am. *EDIT* As an example, Kings of War is doing well in my area - which I do not think is the norm for most places.
But I cannot help but recall those 4e D&D fanboys that were shouting at the tops of their internetz that ICv2 was wrong, wrong, wrong!
And it turned out that it was the fanboys that were wrong.
Mikhaila is vested in this question - but the nature of his vested interest is such that he has much better data for his area than I do.
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
Kroothawk wrote: I still don't think that the professionals answering the poll have no more competence and insight than random 12 year old customers.
As someone interested in rumours I am used to deal with incomplete information. Just because it is incomplete doesn't mean it is worthless to me.
But Mikhaela has a better understanding of IC2 than do you, since he's been actually running a business in that industry for many years.
After seeing the rankings of Pathfinder overtaking D&D and then the announcements of both Paizo and WotC pretty much confirming it in the face of so much internet opposition (including people who owned local game stores slamming the ranking as anecdotal and not reflective of their D&D4E vs Pathfinder sales), I'm far more likely be believe a wide informal survey over a store owner in one city extrapolating his experience across the entire country.
As for 500 being a psychological level, Kroot is talking about trading trends and the idea of support and resistance. It comes about from people asking themselves the question "if this keeps going down, when do I get out?" and human nature pointing them to big round numbers.
frozenwastes wrote: As for 500 being a psychological level, Kroot is talking about trading trends and the idea of support and resistance. It comes about from people asking themselves the question "if this keeps going down, when do I get out?" and human nature pointing them to big round numbers.
Round number theory only applies to retail investors and it's something dumb money trades off of. Smart money and people that are actually going to move a stock aren't trading off of round numbers.
Support and resistance levels are formed based on the price where volume is traded. That is what technical analysis is about which I touched on earlier. Support is in the 470s. Resistance currently sits at 530.. the 500 level is completely meaningless.
Saldiven wrote: But Mikhaela has a better understanding of IC2 than do you, since he's been actually running a business in that industry for many years.
You must not have been following this thread. We have 15 pages of Kroot making logic leaps and debating professionals on topics of which he only has a cursory knowledge(and that is being generous).
Just read some of the cloak and dagger conspiracy theories he's been touting. It's laughable.
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frozenwastes wrote: That's a better explanation. Thanks! I conflated a couple of ideas there.
Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
I find myself in the bizarre position of agreeing with some of your points and still wanting to argue with everything you wrote because you're coming across so high handed and patronising.
Rather than arguing about the value of anecdotal data2, I would like to tap the DakkaDakka resources of actual retailers in the form of Mikhaila who could give us his current ranking and any changes over the years.
We wouldn't want precise sales figures, just an honest high level overview of things.
From what I understand you can only really identify a trend after it is already underway and the holy grail of stock trading is the idea of finding a way to identify a trend beforehand-- or at the very least before the majority. Kroot seems to have decided that the fundamentals of the company are such that he knows the trend is down. That's his "holy grail" when it comes to talking about GW's stock.
My meager experience tells me that stock behaviour lasts until it changes and as soon as you think about what is right or wrong about the direction of a given stock, you might miss what it actually does. That you want to be proven wrong so you can make the correct decision about a position as early as possible. I never buy a stock without a clear exit plan including a mathematical test on what would prove me wrong and show I need to get out. I think that's more important than worrying about predicting where the price goes.
I do think that GW is a stock that responds to fundamentals, but like most stocks that do so, they only seem to respond in the direction of underlying investment market forces like liquidity, general investor sentiment, etc.,. They could have an absolutely glowing report, but if the underlying conditions aren't there, it won't have nearly the impact it could have and cause GW stock to gap back up or something.
The gap down after the financial report is obviously because of the financial report, but only because larger forces allowed it to have the impact that it did. These larger forces may be larger economic issues, but they can just as easily be the thinly traded nature of the stock and how it's followed or not.
It seems to me that the best answer about the future of this stock is "I don't know." It totally possible that the drop to 500 from the high is the beginning of a long trend down, or it could be that those participating in the stock trading have absorbed the new information and we'll have a year or more of range bound status quo both in stock price and financial reporting.
azreal13 wrote: Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
I find myself in the bizarre position of agreeing with some of your points and still wanting to argue with everything you wrote because you're coming across so high handed and patronising.
This is probably a good point to once again step in and and strongly and 'officially' suggest that everyone follow that advice.
azreal13 wrote: Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
The first time he makes a post without insulting anybody, we know his account has been hijacked Dakka's rule #1 doesn't apply to friends of Michael Dobson
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
As a historian, I disagree with this statement on multiple levels.
azreal13 wrote: Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
The first time he makes a post without insulting anybody, we know his account has been hijacked Dakka's rule #1 doesn't apply to friends of Michael Dobson
Dear god, you are just as bad, if not worse because you actually bait him and constantly insult and troll those who disagree with you. Quit it and stop being such a pain when people disagree.
While I agree with DA it is hard to not bite at his tone. At least I can respect his knowledge. Your tone and responses are just as bad but you dont have the knowledge to mitigate that.
I haven't read this thread, but I really do hope that GW folds and thier IP gets picked up by a company that can make it as great or better than it's been in the past.
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
As a historian, I disagree with this statement on multiple levels.
Uhhh...then you are a terrible historian. No offense, but you ought to know why history is distinguishable as an academic discipline. If you didn't pick that up in grad school, that's a problem, and if you picked up in grad school and disagreed with it for some reason then you are an awful representative of the discipline equipped with the power to do measurable harm to the public good.
It would be like a chemist disagreeing with the scientific method if you could release drugs to the public with nothing other than peer review. History is only truly different from the many disciplines from which it borrow methodology in terms of identifying, understanding, interpreting, and accounting for source bias. If you aren't following methodology on those lines, then you aren't a historian.
This, however is off topic and if you would like to continue having a substantive discussion about this I would be more than happy to do so in another thread in an off topic board or via PM, email, snail mail, or phone.
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
As a historian, I disagree with this statement on multiple levels.
Uhhh...then you are a terrible historian. No offense, but you ought to know why history is distinguishable as an academic discipline. If you didn't pick that up in grad school, that's a problem, and if you picked up in grad school and disagreed with it for some reason then you are an awful representative of the discipline equipped with the power to do measurable harm to the public good.
It would be like a chemist disagreeing with the scientific method if you could release drugs to the public with nothing other than peer review. History is only truly different from the many disciplines from which it borrow methodology in terms of identifying, understanding, interpreting, and accounting for source bias. If you aren't following methodology on those lines, then you aren't a historian.
This, however is off topic and if you would like to continue having a substantive discussion about this I would be more than happy to do so in another thread in an off topic board or via PM, email, snail mail, or phone.
A PM will be winging it's way to you with multiple academic references as to the nature of historiography shortly.
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
As a historian, I disagree with this statement on multiple levels.
Uhhh...then you are a terrible historian. No offense, but you ought to know why history is distinguishable as an academic discipline. If you didn't pick that up in grad school, that's a problem, and if you picked up in grad school and disagreed with it for some reason then you are an awful representative of the discipline equipped with the power to do measurable harm to the public good.
It would be like a chemist disagreeing with the scientific method if you could release drugs to the public with nothing other than peer review. History is only truly different from the many disciplines from which it borrow methodology in terms of identifying, understanding, interpreting, and accounting for source bias. If you aren't following methodology on those lines, then you aren't a historian.
This, however is off topic and if you would like to continue having a substantive discussion about this I would be more than happy to do so in another thread in an off topic board or via PM, email, snail mail, or phone.
A PM will be winging it's way to you with multiple academic references as to the nature of historiography shortly.
Oh YEA! History fight! I am running a day-long miniatures game tomorrow and will be out of town on business most of next week, so if I can't get a substantive reply to you in the short term that is the reason.
For those of you who are wondering what this is all about, it appears that Ketara and I have passionate though conflicting views about our discipline. Such things happen. I expect the disagreement would almost certainly appear quite droll and academic from the outside, but is quite exciting.
As Daniel K. Richter has said, and wargamers will appreciate his grandiose language, "history is a serious, essentially mythic, business of defining group identity." You all may not realize it, but Ketara and I could very well be fighting over how your children will conceive of themselves within the context of familial, national, and societal relationships.
I'm a historian and I specialize in Antiquity and Dark Ages as well as Native American history. Heck, anecdotal is sometimes all I have to work with. :(
But in terms of this conversation, it probably has limited value.
MWHistorian wrote: I'm a historian and I specialize in Antiquity and Dark Ages as well as Native American history. Heck, anecdotal is sometimes all I have to work with. :( But in terms of this conversation, it probably has limited value.
That's an odd combination. My specialty is also American Indian history, which perhaps you may have guessed from my D. K. Richter quote. My wife specializes in Medieval Wales, and I often have to explain why she is not a marine biologist.
azreal13 wrote: Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
I find myself in the bizarre position of agreeing with some of your points and still wanting to argue with everything you wrote because you're coming across so high handed and patronising.
Huh? I was complimenting frozenwastes, not belittling him.
He understood the concept of support and resistance and had trouble conveying that information to the board. I helped him clarify the concept and he didn't get defensive about it. The simple fact that he knew what support and resistance levels are suggested to me that he had actually been involved in the stock market more than most people normally do. So I acknowledged the fact that the amount of information he does know, is greater than your average individual. He then followed that up with a well thought out response. What is the problem?
Kroothawk wrote: Dakka's rule #1 doesn't apply to friends of Michael Dobson
Are we going to get more automatic trades from Michael Dobson when we go through the 500 level so some secret entities can take over GW?
azreal13 wrote: Jesus Derek, can you at least TRY to mitigate your tone somewhat?
I find myself in the bizarre position of agreeing with some of your points and still wanting to argue with everything you wrote because you're coming across so high handed and patronising.
Huh? I was complimenting frozenwastes, not belittling him.
He understood the concept of support and resistance and had trouble conveying that information to the board. I helped him clarify the concept and he didn't get defensive about it. The simple fact that he knew what support and resistance levels are suggested to me that he had actually been involved in the stock market more than most people normally do. So I acknowledged the fact that the amount of information he does know, is greater than your average individual. He then followed that up with a well thought out response. What is the problem?
Really? You really don't see how your "compliment" to one user was in fact a massive backhander to everyone else who has participated in this thread who you've borderline mocked, sometimes purely for holding a contrary opinion to yours?
I have some background in cultural anthropology - which is largely about anectdotal data - so I learned never to discount it.
Statisticians, on the other hand, deal with quantifiable data - and anecdotal data bothers them - whether that data is right or wrong.
The Auld Grump, cultural anthropology is also why I sampled hákarl.... which was not quite the nastiest food that I have ever tried....
As a historian and small group researcher, I share your views about anecdotal data. History is defined as a discipline by a methodology designed to draw useful inferences from anecdotal data. Without it historians would just be...cultural anthropologists or something.
As a historian, I disagree with this statement on multiple levels.
Dear gods, above and below - do you know how many arguments that I went through in college about the nature of history?
Some history is quantifiable - Rome, as a not at all random example, kept records that still exist in part to this day.
Some is arguable as being biased - but other things are quantities of items shipped, consumed, or moved around - which are among the most important primary sources of that period.
There are arguments about why legions were moved from Sarmatia, which in turn lead to a successful, if short lived rebellion, but it is known that those legions were moved.
Both anecdote and quantifiable data are important for history - but a common approach is to use anecdotal data to form a theory and then use quantifiable data to confirm or contradict that theory.
Even in more recent histories... the arguments over the root causes of the ACW can go on for hours and hours of enjoyable ranting. (State rights vs. federal authority. Slave ownership vs abolition of slavery. Slave supported Plutocracy vs. Industrialized Plutocracy. Etc., etc., etc.. With supporting evidence including Confederate states that had higher number of volunteers in the Army of the Republic than in the Confederate army (Not total number of soldiers, just volunteers. The draft, you see....))
History and cultural anthropology are related, but distinct, disciplines.
But very few history courses include the professor bringing in fermented fish products and worse, just to illustrate that other cultures are different.. (Worse was huitlacoche... and we were very glad that Professor Sturdivant could not get his hands on Kiviaq - despite his loving description of the stuff....)
Part of what made the arguments enjoyable was their quintessentially unwinnable nature....
The Auld Grump - next up, whether the wings of the Balrog were actual or metaphorical....
azreal13 wrote: Really? You really don't see how your "compliment" to one user was in fact a massive backhander to everyone else who has participated in this thread who you've borderline mocked, sometimes purely for holding a contrary opinion to yours?
I guess we've discovered the root of the problem.
I can see how you could take it like that but that wasn't the intent. it's just stating a fact. Allow me to elaborate.
Everyone is ignorant about most things. That is why we have professional designations and career paths. I don't argue with my doctor or dentist when they tell me i'm wrong. I pay them for a service that I don't know how to provide adequately. I might tell a carpenter how to build my house but if they say it's going to collapse, you bet i'll listen. When I take my car in to a mechanic, I might get a second opinion if I don't trust the guy, but that is because of my own personal ignorance that i'm having to hire him in the 1st place.
Having only general knowledge on any subject means you are ignorant. Acknowledging that shouldn't bruise anyone's ego.
azreal13 wrote: Really? You really don't see how your "compliment" to one user was in fact a massive backhander to everyone else who has participated in this thread who you've borderline mocked, sometimes purely for holding a contrary opinion to yours?
I guess we've discovered the root of the problem.
I can see how you could take it like that but that wasn't the intent. it's just stating a fact. Allow me to elaborate.
Everyone is ignorant about most things. That is why we have professional designations and career paths. I don't argue with my doctor or dentist when they tell me i'm wrong. I pay them for a service that I don't know how to provide adequately. I might tell a carpenter how to build my house but if they say it's going to collapse, you bet i'll listen. When I take my car in to a mechanic, I might get a second opinion if I don't trust the guy, but that is because of my own personal ignorance that i'm having to hire him in the 1st place.
Having only general knowledge on any subject means you are ignorant. Acknowledging that shouldn't bruise anyone's ego.
I don't accept medical advice from someone on the Internet on the say so that they're a doctor.
azreal13 wrote: Really? You really don't see how your "compliment" to one user was in fact a massive backhander to everyone else who has participated in this thread who you've borderline mocked, sometimes purely for holding a contrary opinion to yours?
I guess we've discovered the root of the problem.
I can see how you could take it like that but that wasn't the intent. it's just stating a fact. Allow me to elaborate.
Everyone is ignorant about most things. That is why we have professional designations and career paths. I don't argue with my doctor or dentist when they tell me i'm wrong. I pay them for a service that I don't know how to provide adequately. I might tell a carpenter how to build my house but if they say it's going to collapse, you bet i'll listen. When I take my car in to a mechanic, I might get a second opinion if I don't trust the guy, but that is because of my own personal ignorance that i'm having to hire him in the 1st place.
Having only general knowledge on any subject means you are ignorant. Acknowledging that shouldn't bruise anyone's ego.
I don't accept medical advice from someone on the Internet on the say so that they're a doctor.
You see the distinction?
Bingo.
The fact that you use technical terms doesn't mean anything. Look over at the Chapterhouse case thread. If you want people to believe that you know what you're talking about then put what you're talking about into a language everyone can understand rather than use unexplained terms.
I don't accept medical advice from someone on the Internet on the say so that they're a doctor.
You see the distinction?
Do you claim to have the same professional designation? Since I haven't seen you make that claim, I am assuming you aren't right? So it's safe to say that you do not have a degree or any form of certification in finance or experience in the stock market. Aside from watching the e-trade baby on tv that is.
Meanwhile, I've posted 2 different times my credentials and the mods deleted my link and explanation of what series 7, series 63 and series 65 mean. We have FINRA regulating my industry and I can prove my credentials at any time. Go look it up.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: If you want people to believe that you know what you're talking about then put what you're talking about into a language everyone can understand rather than use unexplained terms.
Umm I did that.. I pointed people to the glossary on the LSE site to help them understand what automatic trades were because there was confusion for like 6 pages.
I also gave an overview and links to resources for technical analysis since there was confusion about how to read charts.
I don't accept medical advice from someone on the Internet on the say so that they're a doctor.
You see the distinction?
Do you claim to have the same professional designation? Since I haven't seen you make that claim, I am assuming you aren't right? So it's safe to say that you do not have a degree or any form of certification in finance or experience in the stock market. Aside from watching the e-trade baby on tv that is.
Meanwhile, I've posted 2 different times my credentials and the mods deleted my link and explanation of what series 7, series 63 and series 65 mean. We have FINRA regulating my industry and I can prove my credentials at any time. Go look it up.
Hooo boy, where to start?
Firstly, no, you've not seen me claim any credentials, because, as you've rightly deduced, I don't hold any. Does that exclude me from a decent knowledge of the topic? No. Do I claim anything more than a superficial knowledge of the wheelings and dealings of the financial markets? No. I will claim a respectable level of knowledge of how businesses work internally and with regard to their market, due in part to personal, professional experience and in part due to academic study though. With all due respect, I've also worked with "professionals" in several spheres who had strings of letters after their name and certificates all over their office who I wouldn't trust to find their ass with both hands and a map.
The fact you hold credentials speaks nothing to your competence, especially in an industry where opinion, judgement and experience can count for a lot. Heck, I hold a qualification in computing, I'd still be a gak programmer.
Kroothawk wrote: Can we just ignore the troll and return to topic?
On topic: Only a few sales, nothing noteworthy, share price still dancing around 505p.
Kroot, there is nothing troll like about his posts unless you wish to count your own posts ITT the same?
Frankly, the way the pair of you have carried on has been pretty shameful, I'm sure you're both better than this, and pretending to post some literal non-fact about the share price just to excuse calling Derek a troll isn't fooling anyone.
Ironically enough, calling someone a troll oftentimes constitutes trolling itself!
In my experience, those accusing others of internet-trolling are typically the ones most guilty of it themselves.
(Off topic, how many people are aware that "trolling" on the internet is a reference to fishing, not ugly humanoids who live under bridges?)
Anyway, while I can't say that Derek's delivery is the most fluffy-bunny I've ever seen, he does at least support his assertions with actual information. I think it's funny that commentators have dismissed his statements because they don't believe he's the expert he claims, and then when he shows that he has provided his credentials previously, commentators then dismiss him because just because he has credentials still doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.
Here, have some cake. While you've got it, why not eat some, too.
Actually, if by "commentators" you are referring to me (and frankly, the cap fits as if it were tailor made) I've actually tried on numerous occasions to persuade Derek to be slightly more "fluffy bunny" precisely because I see merit in his point of view and I see that getting lost in people's reaction to his manner of expression.
The point I was trying to make is "I'm an expert cause I say so, look at all these certificates" is an argument that holds very little weight, doubly so when communicating with complete strangers from the far side of the planet, essentially anonymously. Much better, IMO, to express your arguments in clear, concise, non-jargon/industry speak language and let them speak for themselves, if you really know what you're talking about, you don't need to TELL people you know what you're talking about.
This has not happened frequently enough ITT by my reckoning, and there's way too much willy waving going on, when in actual fact nobody has been, or will be, proven wrong or right in their assertions until at least the next GW report, and realistically, the next 2 or 3.
azreal13 wrote: The point I was trying to make is "I'm an expert cause I say so, look at all these certificates" is an argument that holds very little weight, doubly so when communicating with complete strangers from the far side of the planet, essentially anonymously. Much better, IMO, to express your arguments in clear, concise, non-jargon/industry speak language and let them speak for themselves, if you really know what you're talking about, you don't need to TELL people you know what you're talking about.
This has not happened frequently enough ITT by my reckoning, and there's way too much willy waving going on, when in actual fact nobody has been, or will be, proven wrong or right in their assertions until at least the next GW report, and realistically, the next 2 or 3.
Bingo again.
Short of anything drastic happening I can't see anyone changing their current stance so we just have to wait and see.
But why automatically dismiss someone who works in the field (and has attempted to document it multiple times), but not automatically dismiss someone who is a complete lay person?
Saldiven wrote: But why automatically dismiss someone who works in the field (and has attempted to document it multiple times), but not automatically dismiss someone who is a complete lay person?
I'm not automatically dismissing them. I find Dereks manner pretentious and grating which makes me disinclined to listen to him. I have, however, read through everything in this thread and he has failed to convince me.
Saying that the economy of Cyprus or Greece is representative of the entire of Europe was pretty pants-on-head stupid.
Ironically enough, calling someone a troll oftentimes constitutes trolling itself!
In my experience, those accusing others of internet-trolling are typically the ones most guilty of it themselves.
(Off topic, how many people are aware that "trolling" on the internet is a reference to fishing, not ugly humanoids who live under bridges?)
Anyway, while I can't say that Derek's delivery is the most fluffy-bunny I've ever seen, he does at least support his assertions with actual information. I think it's funny that commentators have dismissed his statements because they don't believe he's the expert he claims, and then when he shows that he has provided his credentials previously, commentators then dismiss him because just because he has credentials still doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.
Here, have some cake. While you've got it, why not eat some, too.
I dismissed him because his data usually seems 'off' to me, and I do not have the time, inclination, or expertise to evaluate it properly. In my experience, when something about a data set looks wrong, even in terms of presentation, it's usually because there's something wrong about it. He also seems wedded to advancing a particular agenda.
Antagonistic writing style, the appearance of a self-aggrandizing agenda, and the shady-looking nature of his quoted data was the trifecta that got him put on my ignore list, where I think he only has one or two friends.
Saldiven wrote: But why automatically dismiss someone who works in the field (and has attempted to document it multiple times), but not automatically dismiss someone who is a complete lay person?
I'm not automatically dismissing them. I find Dereks manner pretentious and grating which makes me disinclined to listen to him. I have, however, read through everything in this thread and he has failed to convince me.
Saying that the economy of Cyprus or Greece is representative of the entire of Europe was pretty pants-on-head stupid.
True, but the idea that there is some sort of cabal of investors out there attempting a secret hostile take-over of GW is equally stupid.
Saldiven wrote: But why automatically dismiss someone who works in the field (and has attempted to document it multiple times), but not automatically dismiss someone who is a complete lay person?
I'm not automatically dismissing them. I find Dereks manner pretentious and grating which makes me disinclined to listen to him. I have, however, read through everything in this thread and he has failed to convince me.
Saying that the economy of Cyprus or Greece is representative of the entire of Europe was pretty pants-on-head stupid.
True, but the idea that there is some sort of cabal of investors out there attempting a secret hostile take-over of GW is equally stupid.
Indeed but surely the professional should not be making claims which are equally stupid as a layperson when discussing the subject he is supposedly an expert in.
So in a way, Kroot comes out better as he has the defence of ignorance.
azreal13 wrote: The point I was trying to make is "I'm an expert cause I say so, look at all these certificates" is an argument that holds very little weight, doubly so when communicating with complete strangers from the far side of the planet, essentially anonymously. Much better, IMO, to express your arguments in clear, concise, non-jargon/industry speak language and let them speak for themselves, if you really know what you're talking about, you don't need to TELL people you know what you're talking about.
Man.. Look at how many times i've fact checked assertions in this thread. The automatic trades deal wasn't me showing my credentials. It was me going to the damn website and showing you the glossary.
Over a week before that big block trade hit, I flat out said that if someone is working out of a block, you'd never see it hit the exchange (which was indeed the case) and you'd see a bounce follow that. Completely contrary to what you guys were saying.
There are some very basic things i've corrected here. Hell.. Skkipper came onto this thread and flat out told everyone I made him 100k based on my advice. So now you are going to sit here and call me incompetent? lol
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A Town Called Malus wrote: Saying that the economy of Cyprus or Greece is representative of the entire of Europe was pretty pants-on-head stupid.
It's also a pretty major misrepresentation of what I said.
What I said was that the banking system in Europe isn't structured in a way that is stable due to excessive leverage. Too many banks own sovereign debt from neighboring countries which undermine the solvency of those banks. Portugal, Spain, Italy.. All had a HUGE flare up in yields a couple years ago because of Greek defaults which in turn, created havoc in countries that have next to no trading relationship with them. Cyprus blew up because the CDS on Greek debt (which was their hedge) didn't pay out and caused 2 of their largest banks to go under. That in turn, caused their economy to blow up.
dereksatkinson wrote: There are some very basic things i've corrected here. Hell.. Skkipper came onto this thread and flat out told everyone I made him 100k based on my advice. So now you are going to sit here and call me incompetent? lol
Anecdotal evidence? I don't know this Skkipper so I have no idea whether he made 100K from your advice or not.
I could claim to have taught Stephen Hawking everything he knows, which would obviously mean I am the greatest theoretical physicist alive today. Just because I say it doesn't make it true.
@derekatkinson
Without going back over many pages would I be correct in summarising your general position is that the drop in GW shares was more to do with general Macro Market conditions than was due to the GW financial report and the lack of Dividend
Saldiven wrote: But why automatically dismiss someone who works in the field (and has attempted to document it multiple times), but not automatically dismiss someone who is a complete lay person?
I'm not automatically dismissing them. I find Dereks manner pretentious and grating which makes me disinclined to listen to him. I have, however, read through everything in this thread and he has failed to convince me.
Saying that the economy of Cyprus or Greece is representative of the entire of Europe was pretty pants-on-head stupid.
True, but the idea that there is some sort of cabal of investors out there attempting a secret hostile take-over of GW is equally stupid.
DA's comment about Greece is you go back and read it plus other comments about it was actually meant thematically and also as an example as to the fact of how the European block is linked to such an absurd degree that the economic impact of Greece and Cyprus can have unexpected consequences. Heading to default even smacked the share prices of unrelated US stocks such was the blind panic - I know my own personal holdings become an ocean of red during that period and I hold mostly US and Asian stocks.
Even if Europe is on the road to recover, a threatened default by Greece or Cyprus (and maybe even Spain) could have far reaching effects.
He wasn't saying it is representative - there is a huge difference.
As for Kroot and his secret cabal he is seeking to unmask ---- that tinfoil doesnt appear to be blocking out those rays.
My position on the larger macro-economic factors is that they played a part in allowing the negative financial report and lack of dividend to have as much impact as it did. People full of hope and exuberance accept bad news far less easily in terms of actually acting on it in the stock market than people who have been struggling for 6+ years of economic uncertainty.
It might also be a worthwhile endeavor to take a look at GW's chart and see just how long the stock can move sideways after a big move up or down. It's a long, long time. So watching the stock so you don't miss something interesting might be a boring exercise. If you own GW stock, then you should already have an exit plan.
dereksatkinson wrote: There are some very basic things i've corrected here. Hell.. Skkipper came onto this thread and flat out told everyone I made him 100k based on my advice. So now you are going to sit here and call me incompetent? lol
Anecdotal evidence? I don't know this Skkipper so I have no idea whether he made 100K from your advice or not.
I could claim to have taught Stephen Hawking everything he knows, which would obviously mean I am the greatest theoretical physicist alive today. Just because I say it doesn't make it true.
Page 12. Wasn't hard to find, I just went to Derek's profile > checked his friends list > visited Skkippers profile > checked his posts.
FacelessMage wrote: In the grim darkness of stock information there is only war.
the difference is I have made $100k on talking with Derek and he is a professional in the industry. I currently own $50k in GW. Am I down? Yes. Am I selling? No. Their price will come up. Buy GW now and you will have more money at the end of the year. Most likely.
Derek, why don't you just copy and paste a glossary of the financial terms and phrases you use most frequently onto the end of every comment you post here or add it to your signature and direct people to refer to it whenever they don't understand what you're talking about? Also, expert or no, you're coming across as a bit rude (though in Kroothawk's case that may be somewhat justified).
Can a mod please keep all those off topic posters in my thread at bay? Pretty please?
I am tired of several poster's attempt to get this thread locked just because they deem us Dakka members unworthy to discuss this topic.
dereksatkinson wrote: There are some very basic things i've corrected here. Hell.. Skkipper came onto this thread and flat out told everyone I made him 100k based on my advice. So now you are going to sit here and call me incompetent? lol
Anecdotal evidence? I don't know this Skkipper so I have no idea whether he made 100K from your advice or not.
I could claim to have taught Stephen Hawking everything he knows, which would obviously mean I am the greatest theoretical physicist alive today. Just because I say it doesn't make it true.
Page 12. Wasn't hard to find, I just went to Derek's profile > checked his friends list > visited Skkippers profile > checked his posts.
The point isn't that it was said (I know it was) but that we have no idea if any of what they said actually happened. All we have is two random people on the internet saying that it did.
Kroothawk wrote: Can a mod please keep all those off topic posters in my thread at bay? Pretty please?
I am tired of several poster's attempt to get this thread locked just because they deem us Dakka members unworthy to discuss this topic.
Oh please, don't pull the martyr card out after everything you've been guilty of in this thread. You're lucky Alph seems to be the mod taking the most interest in the thread and is generally quite easy going, as the comments that have continued to go back and forth between you and Derek despite repeated cautions to tone it down would have earned you both a spell on the naughty step if I were in the position to decree those things.
I'm with Azreal13 on this. I see a bunch of shenanigans and its getting in the way of the topic I'm here to read.
Knock it off. I'd ignore the majority trouble makers but that would gut this thread nearly in its entirety. I think that some time apart for cooler heads to come forth is a must at this point as the diametrically opposed perspectives both Derek and Kroot are bringing are insightful to the topic at hand. Now if you two would realize that and post your points/shake hands and move on, the community would like that.
To get back to the root topic - Cypriot Digressions aside - how is the stock currently performing?
As an aside - I have already decided that The Cypriot Digression is going to be the title of an arc in the next steampunk espionage game that I run. For a throwaway line... it was too good to waste.
We will see how it performs after the next report - but I have honestly seen no action by GW that makes me think that the outlook is improving.
frozenwastes wrote: My position on the larger macro-economic factors is that they played a part in allowing the negative financial report and lack of dividend to have as much impact as it did. People full of hope and exuberance accept bad news far less easily in terms of actually acting on it in the stock market than people who have been struggling for 6+ years of economic uncertainty.
It might also be a worthwhile endeavor to take a look at GW's chart and see just how long the stock can move sideways after a big move up or down. It's a long, long time. So watching the stock so you don't miss something interesting might be a boring exercise. If you own GW stock, then you should already have an exit plan.
GW and stock. Heh.
Games Workshop has lost the ability to be a true global leader that they once were back in 2006. People should have paid attention to those investment firms when they started making their moves back in 2011. Going to take years if any to get back to those good ol' 800p point stock levels. I do however do not see a sudden dramatic drops (or increases). I see stagnation long term and slow contraction short term ahead as they continue to remove quality services from their stores (and elsewhere). And the reason is their inability and refusal to cope with what people would like to play, the continual changes in tastes of what the general wants and the continue global economic changes that lies ahead.
Today someone sold 200,000 shares worth 1,7Mio US$ (plus someone 25000 shares worth 215,111 US$ half an hour earlier).
Guess, this will appear on the investors page soon.
As 200K shares is about 0.6% of issued ordinary shares it may not make an appearance in the investors page/"Notification of major interest in shares" as, I believe, the threshold is much higher.
Koppo wrote: As 200K shares is about 0.6% of issued ordinary shares it may not make an appearance in the investors page/"Notification of major interest in shares" as, I believe, the threshold is much higher.
(Although my calcs may be out by a decimal place)
I am not 100% sure what the UK laws are but for the most part they are pretty similar.
In the USA, if you are a large holder of a company, you are required to disclose any change in ownership. If you buy a share or sell a single share of the stock, you have to file a form 4 filing that discloses change in ownership. I believe currently you have to file that disclosure within 3 days of the trade. Now.. I know that GW is a UK company but for the most part, disclosures like this are pretty consistent worldwide with some obvious exceptions.
The real question is how much information can you really gain from looking at the investor page. IMHO.. Very little.
The people who are selling aren't going to tell you why they are selling until after the fact because they want to get the best price possible. The people who are buying aren't going to tell you until they are done buying because they want the best price possible. Even if you do end up seeing who was involved in a single transaction, due to a disclosure, you don't know their motivation.
You never really know the reasons for someone selling their stake in a company unless those people have explicitly stated the reason publicly. It could be that they need liquidity for another investment or they are selling because their investment objectives were met. Sometimes partners in an LP pass away and the executor of the estate chooses to sell their investment because it's no longer appropriate for the beneficiaries. The problem is that none of that information is really public. In other words, if you are trying to give meaning to individual upticks and down-ticks and volume then you are wasting your time.
Now.. whether or not it hits their investor page is completely speculation up until the time the disclosure is made. Like you said, it was .6% so it could be that both parties were sub 3% owners before and after the transaction.
dereksatkinson wrote: So now that the stock has been steadily rising, no one wants to discuss it anymore? It's up around 570.. 100 points off it's low.
RSI is now overbought. Given that the general market is finally starting to show some weakness, i'd expect another pullback here relatively soon.
dereksatkinson wrote: So now that the stock has been steadily rising, no one wants to discuss it anymore? It's up around 570.. 100 points off it's low.
RSI is now overbought. Given that the general market is finally starting to show some weakness, i'd expect another pullback here relatively soon.
The only reason i found this thread interesting was because of the dismel finincal report. Once it moved past that i found it uninteresting.
As a outsider looking in, GW'S current maketing and release scedual do not seem sustainable. Their has been a noticable drop in quality. Im more interested in the next report to see what impact their tactic had. Buy not due to wishinh ill will. More out of legit interest and wanting to learn more about the challenges of marketing in our niche industry.
P.S. posted from phone. Excuse my spelling and typos.
You can't really look into low trade volume stocks daily with no new info from the company. I guess its wait and see until the next half-year report.
Gotta give some credit to GW since December though. The new website offering a free model seem to be driving up online purchased, edvidence the amount of the free SM captain is selling on ebay.
Also the 3rd HH rulebook from FW seem to be selling like hotcakes.
I'm beginning to see the trend GW is trying to move its customer base from the everyday middle income group to the high income group. I hope they did their reasearch and it pays out for them.
dereksatkinson wrote: So now that the stock has been steadily rising, no one wants to discuss it anymore? It's up around 570.. 100 points off it's low.
RSI is now overbought. Given that the general market is finally starting to show some weakness, i'd expect another pullback here relatively soon.
It's still over 200 points below the fallout from the report. So whilst it's increasing slightly as presumably confidence is up a bit it's still got a long way to go before it recovers.
I also suspect it'll drop again because I can't see how they'll be able to make the next report look any better.
My reasoning (based on knowledge of the gaming market and not the stock market): the new webstore may have brought a spike in traffic and the free marine will have increased sales (but likely just pulled them forward from the upcoming months), offset against any potential fall out from the bugs and the site being down for over a day. The release schedule has continued it's pace but I don't think there's been any make or break releases beyond the Knights which seem to be pretty well received.
They don't appear to have made any changes to strategy, and I don't think the 1-man stores system will start becoming profitable. Closing EU headquarters will show up in this report as a fairly significant cost saving, so I expect the figures will be within 5% of the previous report.
"For the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014 Games Workshop Group PLC today issues the following interim management statement for the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014. In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been broadly in line with the board’s expectations. "
"For the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014 Games Workshop Group PLC today issues the following interim management statement for the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014. In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been broadly in line with the board’s expectations. "
Of course that tells us very little.
Yea, no kidding. The board could have been expecting sales to be dismal .
I think you'd have to go back and look at the projections from the mid-year report, but "broadly in line" leaves a lot of wiggle room. However, the interim statement did not say, "In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been strong, exceeding the expectations of the board."
ISTR one interim statement where they said that "trading has been below expectations", many years ago. And maybe one positive one. Usually it's just that standard one.
"For the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014 Games Workshop Group PLC today issues the following interim management statement for the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014. In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been broadly in line with the board’s expectations. "
Of course that tells us very little.
That is closer to an 'interim nonstatement'.
Board: Our expectations are that some folks are going to buy stock and other folks are going to buy stock.
Interim Report: Hey, look! Some folk sold stock and other folks bought stock! We were right!
Not saying anything either way as to how the stock is doing, just that the interim report is kind of... pointless.
"For the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014 Games Workshop Group PLC today issues the following interim management statement for the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014. In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been broadly in line with the board’s expectations. "
Of course that tells us very little.
That is closer to an 'interim nonstatement'.
Board: Our expectations are that some folks are going to buy stock and other folks are going to buy stock.
Interim Report: Hey, look! Some folk sold stock and other folks bought stock! We were right!
Not saying anything either way as to how the stock is doing, just that the interim report is kind of... pointless.
Well, if the price stalls out here and heads down and makes a new low, then I'll be confident in calling the trend as going down. If it continues to waver between 625 and 493, then all I'll be able to say is that there's certainly no upward moving trend anymore. That's over.
My prediction at this point is some wavering around 560 and a slow wavering down to 493 again. What would prove me wrong would be breaking up over 625ish. 625ish is the low point of the previous upward trend, so I'd want the price to get back into the range of that upward trend in order to describe a return to it.
frozenwastes wrote: Well, if the price stalls out here and heads down and makes a new low, then I'll be confident in calling the trend as going down. If it continues to waver between 625 and 493, then all I'll be able to say is that there's certainly no upward moving trend anymore. That's over.
My prediction at this point is some wavering around 560 and a slow wavering down to 493 again. What would prove me wrong would be breaking up over 625ish. 625ish is the low point of the previous upward trend, so I'd want the price to get back into the range of that upward trend in order to describe a return to it.
GW is a very low volume stock with little news that comes out between reports. Past drops have had a big drop following the significant news (generally no dividend alert) followed by a period of 3-4 months where it climbs up slowly. After that - it drops again, and again...once the bottom is reached it sticks around there for a year or two before they manage to cut enough to start issuing dividends again. I see nothing in GW's current activity to make me think this will not happen again. We are currently a bit over half way through that 3-4 month period after the first drop. I would have expected a stronger interim statement if they actually thought they might have turned things around - so I do not doubt that it will drop again. It may hold in this range till the annual report - but there isn't really any there there to give reason for strong growth.
One of the problems with selling a bunch of the stock is that there are not a bunch of people wanting to buy it. Large stake holders are no doubt looking for their exits - but those sorts of things do take time. If it were another company trading at a higher volume with a faster news cycle of things which may motivate investors...well, I would consider traditional economics to be more relevant. However, most these small stocks that don't trade and don't make news don't normally have any sort of rapid changes and past patterns tend to be pretty good indicators of future performance. Especially considering that effectively nothing has changed within the company throughout the history of the company. The same mistakes they have made in the past will be made again and they have not demonstrated any inclining of changing their reaction to events within or without the company.
After closing the regional HQ... what does GW have left to cut?
Heck, their choosing to close the HQs took me by surprise, it does not seem to be something that helps in the long term - just a short term cut in costs, with much of that savings being lost by increased workload at the still extant HQ....
TheAuldGrump wrote: After closing the regional HQ... what does GW have left to cut?
Customers...creative staff...more customers...
Seriously though - they have actually been contracting the company to the point where they are not able to produce as much as they used to even if they wanted to. The thing is that they really do not appear to want to sell to more people, and are actively attempting to reduce their customer base.
If they sell one box of space marines at $50 that is more profitable than selling two boxes of space marines at $25 each. Even though they have the same impact on the revenue - they spent less money to produce, package and ship one box as opposed to two boxes. Things like the Knight Titans that they released are many times more profitable than the Ogryns - even if they sell 4 or 5 times as many units of the Ogryns compared to the Knights.
An ideal situation for GW would be to have 1 customer who buys a single item made with a 10 year old mold for $250,000,000 every year. That way they could fire their writers, designers, tool makers and get rid of all that pesky customer support that is so expensive when you actually have customers.
TheAuldGrump wrote: After closing the regional HQ... what does GW have left to cut?
Customers...creative staff...more customers...
Seriously though - they have actually been contracting the company to the point where they are not able to produce as much as they used to even if they wanted to. The thing is that they really do not appear to want to sell to more people, and are actively attempting to reduce their customer base.
If they sell one box of space marines at $50 that is more profitable than selling two boxes of space marines at $25 each. Even though they have the same impact on the revenue - they spent less money to produce, package and ship one box as opposed to two boxes. Things like the Knight Titans that they released are many times more profitable than the Ogryns - even if they sell 4 or 5 times as many units of the Ogryns compared to the Knights.
An ideal situation for GW would be to have 1 customer who buys a single item made with a 10 year old mold for $250,000,000 every year. That way they could fire their writers, designers, tool makers and get rid of all that pesky customer support that is so expensive when you actually have customers.
As absurdly stupid as that sounds I can not fault the logic behind it....
frozenwastes wrote: Well, if the price stalls out here and heads down and makes a new low, then I'll be confident in calling the trend as going down. If it continues to waver between 625 and 493, then all I'll be able to say is that there's certainly no upward moving trend anymore. That's over.
My prediction at this point is some wavering around 560 and a slow wavering down to 493 again. What would prove me wrong would be breaking up over 625ish. 625ish is the low point of the previous upward trend, so I'd want the price to get back into the range of that upward trend in order to describe a return to it.
GW is a very low volume stock with little news that comes out between reports. Past drops have had a big drop following the significant news (generally no dividend alert) followed by a period of 3-4 months where it climbs up slowly. After that - it drops again, and again...once the bottom is reached it sticks around there for a year or two before they manage to cut enough to start issuing dividends again. I see nothing in GW's current activity to make me think this will not happen again. We are currently a bit over half way through that 3-4 month period after the first drop. I would have expected a stronger interim statement if they actually thought they might have turned things around - so I do not doubt that it will drop again. It may hold in this range till the annual report - but there isn't really any there there to give reason for strong growth.
One of the problems with selling a bunch of the stock is that there are not a bunch of people wanting to buy it. Large stake holders are no doubt looking for their exits - but those sorts of things do take time. If it were another company trading at a higher volume with a faster news cycle of things which may motivate investors...well, I would consider traditional economics to be more relevant. However, most these small stocks that don't trade and don't make news don't normally have any sort of rapid changes and past patterns tend to be pretty good indicators of future performance. Especially considering that effectively nothing has changed within the company throughout the history of the company. The same mistakes they have made in the past will be made again and they have not demonstrated any inclining of changing their reaction to events within or without the company.
I would counter that this is what is killing them. In your specific example, yes it makes more sense. However, what if lowering the price to $25 (from the $50 cited in the example) resulted in five boxes of Space Marines sold instead of the one. Now, let's say the cost, for sake of the example, was $5 to produce those marines. In the case of one at $50, you make $45 profit. In the case of five at $25, you make $100 profit. You make less margin on the latter, but you make more profit. As someone once said to me in order to always keep this front and center in my business - 10% of a billion is much better than 60% of a million.
Secondly, GW is going to have a certain amount of fixed and planned variable costs they have to cover - in other words they need a certain amount of minimum business to sustain themselves. At the rate they are going, they may soon not even have enough to cover this.
The next financial reporting period is going to be very interesting to say the least.
If they sell one box of space marines at $50 that is more profitable than selling two boxes of space marines at $25 each. Even though they have the same impact on the revenue - they spent less money to produce, package and ship one box as opposed to two boxes. Things like the Knight Titans that they released are many times more profitable than the Ogryns - even if they sell 4 or 5 times as many units of the Ogryns compared to the Knights.
An ideal situation for GW would be to have 1 customer who buys a single item made with a 10 year old mold for $250,000,000 every year. That way they could fire their writers, designers, tool makers and get rid of all that pesky customer support that is so expensive when you actually have customers.
Although that may seem as ideal, narrowing the customer base too much makes one very vulnerable to market shifts etc. An extreme example - what if your one customer has a heart attack? This is actually a problem for GW nowadays, their catalogue of games has got too thin. To bring out FFG again, they have a huge catalogue, and whilst most of their titles don't sell much and probably they aren't all that economical in some respects, they also aren't vulnerable should for example, new Star Wars movie flop and kill interest to X-wing franchise, or something.
Wayshuba wrote: I would counter that this is what is killing them. In your specific example, yes it makes more sense. However, what if lowering the price to $25 (from the $50 cited in the example) resulted in five boxes of Space Marines sold instead of the one. Now, let's say the cost, for sake of the example, was $5 to produce those marines. In the case of one at $50, you make $45 profit. In the case of five at $25, you make $100 profit. You make less margin on the latter, but you make more profit. As someone once said to me in order to always keep this front and center in my business - 10% of a billion is much better than 60% of a million.
Secondly, GW is going to have a certain amount of fixed and planned variable costs they have to cover - in other words they need a certain amount of minimum business to sustain themselves. At the rate they are going, they may soon not even have enough to cover this.
The next financial reporting period is going to be very interesting to say the least.
If they sell one box of space marines at $50 that is more profitable than selling two boxes of space marines at $25 each. Even though they have the same impact on the revenue - they spent less money to produce, package and ship one box as opposed to two boxes. Things like the Knight Titans that they released are many times more profitable than the Ogryns - even if they sell 4 or 5 times as many units of the Ogryns compared to the Knights.
An ideal situation for GW would be to have 1 customer who buys a single item made with a 10 year old mold for $250,000,000 every year. That way they could fire their writers, designers, tool makers and get rid of all that pesky customer support that is so expensive when you actually have customers.
Although that may seem as ideal, narrowing the customer base too much makes one very vulnerable to market shifts etc. An extreme example - what if your one customer has a heart attack? This is actually a problem for GW nowadays, their catalogue of games has got too thin. To bring out FFG again, they have a huge catalogue, and whilst most of their titles don't sell much and probably they aren't all that economical in some respects, they also aren't vulnerable should for example, new Star Wars movie flop and kill interest to X-wing franchise, or something.
Don't confuse what GW thinks is a good idea and what is actually a good idea. They have priced their products in a way which they have simply cut them out of the reach of many potential customers. They continue to make their products more difficult to find and obtain. They have reduced their catalog down to 3 games, and it seems that they are quite interested in reducing it to two games.
It isn't the way I would do business - but it is what they are doing.
They remind me of woolworths they used to sell everyday products at reasonable prices. Then they moved up market somewhat, things started to slow down. They were finished off by internet sales. Now we have poundland.
Little something I found from an actual GW investor. The relevant bits are the answers to Q6 and 7, but the rest of the interview explains his methodology...
In the case of Games Workshop, the interim results disappointed for perfectly resolvable short-term problems and I had the opportunity to increase our existing holding at prices between 515p and 530p, compared to around 560p currently.
While it is true - they suffered from perfectly resolvable short-term problems, GW has never shown any ability to actually correct anything in any way other than cost cuttings and price increases. The management is very one track in terms of what they do, and as opposed to looking for ways to grow in order to overcome any issues they are having they are actively retracting in ways that I haven't seen many manufacturers shrink in years. At this point, they have contracted back to where they have started and the only place they have left to cut (without closing their retail arm) is letting go staff within Nottingham itself - something that they have been reluctant to do for whatever reason (they don't seem to want to cut the fat of middle management there - and it has grown while outside offices have been closed).
A different stock or different management - and I would probably have the same confidence to invest (and have "pounced" in the past). Not GW though. When I consider where good places are to hide my money, they don't inspire much confidence. It doesn't help that I have been watching them for nearly 20 years and have seem them do the same exact things over and over without any indication that they learned their lesson the last time.
While it is true - they suffered from perfectly resolvable short-term problems, GW has never shown any ability to actually correct anything in any way other than cost cuttings and price increases. The management is very one track in terms of what they do, and as opposed to looking for ways to grow in order to overcome any issues they are having they are actively retracting in ways that I haven't seen many manufacturers shrink in years. At this point, they have contracted back to where they have started and the only place they have left to cut (without closing their retail arm) is letting go staff within Nottingham itself - something that they have been reluctant to do for whatever reason (they don't seem to want to cut the fat of middle management there - and it has grown while outside offices have been closed).
A different stock or different management - and I would probably have the same confidence to invest (and have "pounced" in the past). Not GW though. When I consider where good places are to hide my money, they don't inspire much confidence. It doesn't help that I have been watching them for nearly 20 years and have seem them do the same exact things over and over without any indication that they learned their lesson the last time.
Umm.. you do realize this is a relatively new management team that hasn't even been through a business cycle. So your generalizations and conjecture are based purely on your own personal feelings and perceptions about the company and not on management's track record. You aren't alone btw.. There are about 18 pages of this.
dereksatkinson wrote: Umm.. you do realize this is a relatively new management team that hasn't even been through a business cycle. So your generalizations and conjecture are based purely on your own personal feelings and perceptions about the company and not on management's track record. You aren't alone btw.. There are about 18 pages of this.
Who is new?
Tom Kirby (age 63), chairman and acting CEO. Tom Kirby joined Games Workshop in April 1986 as general manager and led the management buy-out in December 1991, becoming chief executive at that time.
Kevin Rountree (age 43), COO. Kevin Rountree joined Games Workshop in March 1998 as assistant group accountant.
Chris Myatt (age 69). Chris Myatt is the senior independent director, joining the board on 18 April 1996.
Nick Donaldson (age 59). Nick Donaldson was appointed to the board on 18April 2002.
Elaine O’Donnell (age 43). Elaine O’Donnell was appointed to the board on 28 November 2013.
Well - she is new...sort of, but one out of 5 isn't anything to inspire change. Since her background is accounting, and as a corporate finance partner with EY - it leads me to believe that they have an eye on further restructuring in order to make the books look better instead of attempting to grow their product line and customer base...since that is what Ernst & Young sort of specializes in.
Outside of that - you have Merrit who has been with the company for almost as long as Kirby and is the "driving force" of the studio and creative departments (and a tool - yes, I know him personally). The various other underlings below them have no stake or significance in the company, its decisions and what they do. Most are middle management who would be just as happy selling sprockets as games. The other forces within the company are mostly figureheads who have been around for decades as well.
Do you honestly think that it's acceptable to copy and paste only a portion of a biography and omit everything that contradicts your position? That's basically what you did there. It's a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
Here are some of the COMPLETE biographies that are free from editing..
Tom Kirby (age 63), chairman and acting CEO. Tom Kirby joined Games Workshop in April 1986 as general manager and led the management buy-out in December 1991, becoming chief executive at that time. Between 1998 and 2000 he took on the role of non-executive chairman, returning to the role of chief executive in September 2000. He performed the role of chairman from December 2007 to January 2013 when he became chairman and acting CEO. Prior to joining Games Workshop, Tom worked for six years for a distributor of fantasy games in the UK and was previously an Inspector of Taxes.
Kevin Rountree (age 43), COO. Kevin Rountree joined Games Workshop in March 1998 as assistant group accountant. He then had various management roles within Games Workshop, including head of sales for the Other Activities division (including Black Library, licensing and Sabertooth Games). During the year ended 29 May 2011, he took on the responsibility of managing the Group’s service centres globally. To reflect this, his title was changed to chief operating officer from chief financial officer. He, however, still retains responsibility for all financial matters within Games Workshop. He qualified as a chartered management accountant in August 2001. Prior to joining Games Workshop, Kevin was the management accountant at J Barbour & Sons Limited and trained at Price Waterhouse.
So yes.. these guys were working with the company but an assistant group account or "chairman" isn't the same as an Executive position. Do you remember Mark Wells? He was the CEO up until January of last year.
Tom Kirby is the guy who was responsible for taking the company public, has been at the head of the company in a variety of roles for near 20 years and is the largest private stakeholder.
If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
azreal13 wrote: Tom Kirby is the guy who was responsible for taking the company public, has been at the head of the company in a variety of roles for near 20 years and is the largest private stakeholder.
If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
Besides, if you talk to folks who have worked at GWHQ, the description is overwhelmingly consistent: it's the Tom Kirby show. It has been for more than a decade.
azreal13 wrote: Tom Kirby is the guy who was responsible for taking the company public, has been at the head of the company in a variety of roles for near 20 years and is the largest private stakeholder.
If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
Besides, if you talk to folks who have worked at GWHQ, the description is overwhelmingly consistent: it's the Tom Kirby show. It has been for more than a decade.
I think you can also read into the fact that GW the corporation seems to act and react like a person (ie the hubris and arrogance with all the legal and IP stuff) rather than a gestalt entity comprised of multiple personalities with their own specialist knowledge and experience doing whatever's best for the company that there is very much a 'strong' hand at the tiller.
azreal13 wrote: Tom Kirby is the guy who was responsible for taking the company public, has been at the head of the company in a variety of roles for near 20 years and is the largest private stakeholder.
If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
Besides, if you talk to folks who have worked at GWHQ, the description is overwhelmingly consistent: it's the Tom Kirby show. It has been for more than a decade.
I think you can also read into the fact that GW the corporation seems to act and react like a person (ie the hubris and arrogance with all the legal and IP stuff) rather than a gestalt entity comprised of multiple personalities with their own specialist knowledge and experience doing whatever's best for the company that there is very much a 'strong' hand at the tiller.
I very much agree. The people I have spoken to who work at GWHQ have always seemed to lack independence. They are delivering a message rather than enacting a policy. They lack any authority (or initiative?) to adjust on the fly and make independent decisions.
Outside of that - you have Merrit who has been with the company for almost as long as Kirby and is the "driving force" of the studio and creative departments (and a tool - yes, I know him personally).
You know, I liken this to one of the generally held viewpoints that you should never watch an interview with an actor or musician, they invariably disappoint.
I loved some of the stuff Merritt did with the 40k background (especially, the consolidation of the Heresy series after the HH:TCG came out in the Collected Visions books). Then, I read that he refused to pick up some of the Chapterhouse miniatures at that recent trial on the grounds that they were poisonous/harmful.
dereksatkinson wrote: Do you honestly think that it's acceptable to copy and paste only a portion of a biography and omit everything that contradicts your position? That's basically what you did there. It's a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
Here are some of the COMPLETE biographies that are free from editing..
...and some more...
So yes.. these guys were working with the company but an assistant group account or "chairman" isn't the same as an Executive position. Do you remember Mark Wells? He was the CEO up until January of last year.
Kirby could be called janitor for all it matters - when Wells was there, Kirby was in charge. Kirby was in charge before Wells was appointed, Kirby was in charge while Wells was there, Kirby is still in charge after Wells left. No change with or without Mark Wells.
On the COO. He was COO before, just didn't have the title. He has been on the board of directors since 2008. They gave him the title and placed him as head of global customer service (which they did because they closed all their regional HQs).
Considering that neither are new and their title changes were little to do with anything significant (other than there is no check to Kirby at all being both Chairman and CEO), my previous statement stands. No new blood, no change in management. If anything putting a CFO in a COO position means it is even more likely that they will cut to the bone throughout the company...which while it might correct the books for a year or two more, is very bad news for long term growth.
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azreal13 wrote: If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
I would guess because his bio says "non-executive" - however anyone who is familiar with the company...even those who are not familiar but who have at least read the annual reports from the 5 years or so that Wells was sitting in the CEO seat...knows that Kirby hasn't let go of anything since Ansell left.
Putin was president of Russia 2000-2008, then Russian constitution forbid him to apply for a third term in a row, so his prime minister Medvedev became predident for the minimum of one term and Putin became his prime minister. After that Putin was allowed to apply for another term as president and now again is president. So officially, he wasn't in charge for 14 years in a row. But we know better.
In Germany, it is illegal to be chair AND CEO of a company, in UK it is not illegal, just frowned upon. AFAIK there was some pressure on Kirby to leave the CEO position. For some unknown reason, Wells was not happy on his CEO position and suddenly left, with Kirby again taking over. So officially, Kirby was not in charge 20+ years in a row, but we know better.
dereksatkinson wrote: Do you honestly think that it's acceptable to copy and paste only a portion of a biography and omit everything that contradicts your position? That's basically what you did there. It's a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
Here are some of the COMPLETE biographies that are free from editing..
...and some more...
So yes.. these guys were working with the company but an assistant group account or "chairman" isn't the same as an Executive position. Do you remember Mark Wells? He was the CEO up until January of last year.
Kirby could be called janitor for all it matters - when Wells was there, Kirby was in charge. Kirby was in charge before Wells was appointed, Kirby was in charge while Wells was there, Kirby is still in charge after Wells left. No change with or without Mark Wells.
On the COO. He was COO before, just didn't have the title. He has been on the board of directors since 2008. They gave him the title and placed him as head of global customer service (which they did because they closed all their regional HQs).
Considering that neither are new and their title changes were little to do with anything significant (other than there is no check to Kirby at all being both Chairman and CEO), my previous statement stands. No new blood, no change in management. If anything putting a CFO in a COO position means it is even more likely that they will cut to the bone throughout the company...which while it might correct the books for a year or two more, is very bad news for long term growth.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
azreal13 wrote: If I read that right Derek, you're trying to argue he's "new" because...?
I would guess because his bio says "non-executive" - however anyone who is familiar with the company...even those who are not familiar but who have at least read the annual reports from the 5 years or so that Wells was sitting in the CEO seat...knows that Kirby hasn't let go of anything since Ansell left.
Well, my opinion on one of the participants in this thread has been confirmed.
Yes, it is obvious that Kirby is a restless young Turk, just come into the reins of the company, and that he was not previously in an 'executive' position....
dereksatkinson wrote: Do you honestly think that it's acceptable to copy and paste only a portion of a biography and omit everything that contradicts your position? That's basically what you did there. It's a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
Here are some of the COMPLETE biographies that are free from editing..
All you ended up doing is emphasizing that Tom Kirby is even more central because he's now taken on two roles on the board being both chair and ceo. And that in the case of the other guy, that GW gave a member of their established management team even wider influence by making the CFO into the COO.
The rest of the biographies make them look even more entrenched, not less
dereksatkinson wrote: Do you honestly think that it's acceptable to copy and paste only a portion of a biography and omit everything that contradicts your position? That's basically what you did there. It's a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
dereksatkinson mate, if you are hoping to persuade anyone that you know anything at all about how GW is run you have just completely failed. You may have an encyclopaedic knowledge of stock market responses to macroeconomic forces, but in trying to persuade anyone here that by just shuffling their hand about without discarding any cards or drawing new ones somehow GW's management is a "new" team you have demonstrated an unbelievable level of naivety.
I've been in business management for quarter of a century. I understand people and I know how businesses are run. I have run the odd one or two myself over the years, with a modicum of success. If you are trying to say that by changing a couple of titles and sitting the directors in different chairs somehow they will be making any significant changes, you are demonstrating a lack of understanding of the practicalities of running a small to medium size business like GW.
To those of us who have watched his business and seen his handiwork over the last couple of decades, Kirby is a leopard who will never change his spots. It doesn't matter if you call him Chairman, CEO, Chief Cook or Bottlewasher, he rules the place with an iron fist and his personality runs through the management team like a dose of the clap. Shuffling a few seats around and occasionally bringing in the odd new face who by dint of being accepted onto the team will have to be or become a spineless yes-man will change zip.
Seriously, I can't give you any credence at all for your opinion that the highlighted text justifies calling the GW management team a new one! That's just ludicrous in the extreme!
Kroothawk wrote: Can a mod please keep all those off topic posters in my thread at bay? Pretty please?
I am tired of several poster's attempt to get this thread locked just because they deem us Dakka members unworthy to discuss this topic.
The average Dakka member has about as much financial knowledge as the average Dakka member knows how to perform heart surgery. Not to say that there aren't people with at least a cursory understanding here, but it isn't the norm. Personally I did do accounting at Uni but arguing commerce over the internet is just pointless I have come to realise, especially on a miniatures forum of all places.
There are some comments that are good to read because the poster knows what they're talking about, it's just you have to wade through conjecture, hearsay, and someone who flatout can't even read a financial report.
With that being said, GW will soldier on for a while I think. They're selling off rights to IPs to the lights of fantasy flight, the Space Hulk video game, and Eternal Crusade. 3D printing has still got at least a decade to go before it even remotely approaches resin casting price and accuracy. Plus they're still one of the cheaper manufacturers on price per mini (as much as some might to argue against it) if you buy from the UK or the US; $2.00-2.50 per mini for the cookie cutter stuff is pretty good and not many manufacturers come close. If you buy from somewhere like darksphere you're looking at $1.50-2.00.
Sean_OBrien wrote: Kirby could be called janitor for all it matters - when Wells was there, Kirby was in charge. Kirby was in charge before Wells was appointed, Kirby was in charge while Wells was there, Kirby is still in charge after Wells left. No change with or without Mark Wells.
I would guess because his bio says "non-executive" - however anyone who is familiar with the company...even those who are not familiar but who have at least read the annual reports from the 5 years or so that Wells was sitting in the CEO seat...knows that Kirby hasn't let go of anything since Ansell left.
Then it would be a securities violation and they would be out of compliance with the UK corporate governance code. Are you prepared to make that kind of statement tp be factually correct? You might suspect that to be the case but there is no factual evidence to support that. I am pretty sure you have as much knowledge of the day to day operations of GW as you have of my day to day. Basically zero.
Sean_OBrien wrote: On the COO. He was COO before, just didn't have the title.
How exactly do you know this? And who exactly what the CFO before he took over that role? Those people are gone. And someone else is doing that job now even if those new people don't have an executive title.
The rest of the biographies make them look even more entrenched, not less
Maybe we need a glossary...
Independent directors can not be involved in the operations of the company. Hence, why they are called independent.
Every single UK company is required to have a 5 member board. The chairman, CEO, COO and 2 independent directors. Since Kirby has 2 of those spots, he loses one vote and they had to bring in another director. 5 years ago they had a different COO, CEO and didn't have one of the existing directors. Considering there are only 5 voting members, that is turnover. Considering that the Chairman can't be involved in the day to day operation of the company, Kirby has had limited experience working directly with the current COO/CFO of the company.
Yeah, what you've done there Derek is confuse what is supposed to happen with real life.
Perhaps you should clarify that not every UK company is obliged to have a 5 member board, you might be assuming we're talking ability publicly traded companies, but that wouldn't be a given, especially in a sector where GW is the only one.
azreal13 wrote: Yeah, what you've done there Derek is confuse what is supposed to happen with real life.
Perhaps you should clarify that not every UK company is obliged to have a 5 member board, you might be assuming we're talking ability publicly traded companies, but that wouldn't be a given, especially in a sector where GW is the only one.
We all know what assumptions do, don't we?
Ofcourse publicly traded companies. Also.. the business cycle is 7 years in case that wasn't clear.
azreal13 wrote: Yeah, what you've done there Derek is confuse what is supposed to happen with real life.
Perhaps you should clarify that not every UK company is obliged to have a 5 member board, you might be assuming we're talking ability publicly traded companies, but that wouldn't be a given, especially in a sector where GW is the only one.
We all know what assumptions do, don't we?
Ofcourse publicly traded companies. Also.. the business cycle is 7 years in case that wasn't clear.
Yeaaah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to come in at the weekend and spend some more time actually learning about the specific history of Games Workshop and Tom Kirby's relationship with it, because while you might know about stuff relevant to the topic in general, you clearly know feth all about GW.
Yeaaah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to come in at the weekend and spend some more time actually learning about the specific history of Games Workshop and Tom Kirby's relationship with it, because while you might know about stuff relevant to the topic in general, you clearly know feth all about GW.
We are obviously talking different languages. You can go back through all 18 pages and see i've referred to 7 year cycles with regard to the company
No, you're trying to argue that somehow Kirby is 'new' because...
Well, then I cease to attach any credibility to anything you say, because several of your statements indicate that a) you appear to have very little knowledge of the specifics of GW, despite your knowledge of wider general stock market stuff and b) have shown you seem to be quite naive with regard to the difference between theoretical business practice and what actually happens IRL.
Plus, despite several attempts on my part to persuade you to mitigate your tone, and to try and persuade other users that you were bringing something valid to the discussion (well, this one anyway, I haven't seen anything outside this thread from you that wasn't worthless snark) you continue to be abrasive and confrontational. I'm tired of it, by all means carry on however you like, but I won't be trying to smooth anything over from now on.
Kevin Rountree has been working at GW for over 15 years. He started there as an assistant accountant before he got his professional accreditation. And has been working there as an accountant ever since, climbing the corporate ladder all the way up to the top accounting position, the CFO. And then on top of that, he's also become the COO while maintaining his CFO duties. This guy is probably the one Kirby has worked with the most over the last decade. He's a GW lifer.
Of the independent directors, Chris Myatt has been there for 18 years. And Nick Donaldson has been there for almost 12 years.
These people have been working together for over a decade.
GW has some of the most entrenched and unchanging management possible.
Funny how GW lets a young inexperienced intern with nothing to decide make the company a public one twenty years ago Must have been market pressure from Cyprus
It is rather entertaining to me to listen to a the disinformation being posted here by the so called "people in the know". Please continue. This has been an enjoyable read.
I think I'll go back investing into the big boys... you can make real honest to good money with REAL game companies than a so called game company that pretends to be a big game company.
And far as the talking heads in here? Have fun defending the glass cathedral. Make sure you say your prayers to the machine god and oil your botlers properly. You are going to need it when you attack the imaginary dragon in your delusional version of life.
Well, it does not seem likely that the appeals on the Chapterhouse case will be heard before the next report is due - so I predict (based on nothing more than cynical pessimism) that the stock will have a mild bump - whether because investors are not expecting dividends this time around, the sales of the satellite HQs allowing a dividend, or just the slow creep upwards.
Whether this bump is going to weather whatever the results of the appeals are....
Of course, I could be wrong - but I do not foresee a big bump, but neither do I foresee another big drop. Another small drop... also possible.
When you have a low volume stock like this, big moves can happen very quickly and big potential moves can also be absorbed quickly by one large buyer or seller. Actually predicting the behaviour of a stock like this is even harder than predicting how the market moves in general-- and that's a loser's game compared to taking a position and then waiting to be proven wrong.
I think GW's stock will respond to the contents of their financial reports. And GW has been doubling down on their one employee store structure. So the only real question is how the last while went as far as getting the right combination of employees and locations to have more stores open and remain profitable than close.
frozenwastes wrote: When you have a low volume stock like this, big moves can happen very quickly and big potential moves can also be absorbed quickly by one large buyer or seller. Actually predicting the behaviour of a stock like this is even harder than predicting how the market moves in general-- and that's a loser's game compared to taking a position and then waiting to be proven wrong.
I think GW's stock will respond to the contents of their financial reports. And GW has been doubling down on their one employee store structure. So the only real question is how the last while went as far as getting the right combination of employees and locations to have more stores open and remain profitable than close.
Low stock volume always concerns me since there are little tricks you can do.
There was 5 GW stores on my sphere of influence. There is only a one man store left. Indies will sell whatever makes them a profit.
But there will be a lot of double speak soon when the financials come out.
I wonder what method of accounting practices will they use this time around.... But I am expecting the usual from this company.
They could try telling everyone that a loss was expected because of the move to 1 man stores again, but I think even they aren't that dumb.
If they are rushing 7th specifically to make it onto this report that could help but I recall the report in which 6th launched was flat and they simply said 'yeah well, we can't complain.' or something to that effect.
They will also tell that the closing of all non-UKHQs was planned and a brilliant move, but restructuring still costs a bit And that they expected this to be a weak year because they only released a new 40k edition, Space marines and thousands of other Codices. But next year will be brilliant!
azreal13 wrote: No, you're trying to argue that somehow Kirby is 'new' because...
You are putting words in my mouth and are misrepresenting what I said.
The current management team has not been through a business cycle together. That was my comment you are latching onto. Consistently throughout this thread, I have pointed to 7 years as the span for a business cycle even before this side discussion started.
1 of the board members has been there for 1 year. Another board member took over his positions in 2011. Kirby isn't new to the company but he has never worked with 2 of the 4 board members. 40% of your board has never been through a business cycle with the company as an executive. That matters. I know it doesn't fit your narrative but when analysts look at a company, they take things kind of things into account.
I assume that the next time someone gets promoted into the COO position we are going to say that person was secretly Kirby's right hand man as well? Shocked we aren't claiming Elaine O’Donnell isn't just a pawn of the evil Tom Kirby.
So I think what you're getting at is simply that it could influence the stock, not that the company's not necessarily going to be managed any differently?
azreal13 wrote: No, you're trying to argue that somehow Kirby is 'new' because...
You are putting words in my mouth and are misrepresenting what I said.
The current management team has not been through a business cycle together. Consistently throughout this thread, I have pointed to 7 years as the span for a business cycle even before this side discussion started.
1 of the board members has been there for 1 year. Another board member took over his positions in 2011. Kirby isn't new to the company but he has never worked with 2 of the 4 board members. 40% of your board has never been through a business cycle with the company as an executive. That matters. I know it doesn't fit your narrative but when analysts look at a company, they take things kind of things into account.
I assume that the next time someone gets promoted into the COO position we are going to say that person was secretly Kirby's right hand man as well? Shocked we aren't claiming Elaine O’Donnell isn't just a pawn of the evil Tom Kirby.
Actually, if you're asserting that directorship appointments aren't frequently down to personal relationships as much as experience or knowledge then you're being very naive. Especially when anyone who has had a corporate relationship with GW, or, in my case, is familiar with the environment, seems to be able to recognise that GW is very much an extension of Kirby's personality and philosophy.
I'll also remain healthily cynical that "the current board hasn't worked together for a full 7 year cycle" is of any real significance to any but a small number of analysts.
Putin is president of Russia for only two years, so he is basically a newcomer
Good thing most of us know who is in charge of GW, even when the vice janitor was exchanged two years ago.
That's the difference between knowing the company at hand and some textbook trolling.
azreal13 wrote: No, you're trying to argue that somehow Kirby is 'new' because...
You are putting words in my mouth and are misrepresenting what I said.
The current management team has not been through a business cycle together. Consistently throughout this thread, I have pointed to 7 years as the span for a business cycle even before this side discussion started.
1 of the board members has been there for 1 year. Another board member took over his positions in 2011. Kirby isn't new to the company but he has never worked with 2 of the 4 board members. 40% of your board has never been through a business cycle with the company as an executive. That matters. I know it doesn't fit your narrative but when analysts look at a company, they take things kind of things into account.
I assume that the next time someone gets promoted into the COO position we are going to say that person was secretly Kirby's right hand man as well? Shocked we aren't claiming Elaine O’Donnell isn't just a pawn of the evil Tom Kirby.
Actually, if you're asserting that directorship appointments aren't frequently down to personal relationships as much as experience or knowledge then you're being very naive. Especially when anyone who has had a corporate relationship with GW, or, in my case, is familiar with the environment, seems to be able to recognise that GW is very much an extension of Kirby's personality and philosophy.
I'll also remain healthily cynical that "the current board hasn't worked together for a full 7 year cycle" is of any real significance to any but a small number of analysts.
Also ignoring that Rountree was CFO before COO (and had been since 2008).
Also ignoring that prior to that he was Director (not board of directors mind you...but Director) of Other Operations which is Forge World, Black Library and Outside Licensing (and had been since 2004).
Also ignoring that Kirby's management statement when Wells was appointed to CEO was:
Our half-yearly report does not usually have a Chairman’s preamble. The reason it does this time is because for the first time this is the Chairman’s preamble alone and not that of the Chairman and Chief Executive. In late November 2007 the board invited long-time Head of Sales, Mark Wells, to take on the role of CEO. This move recognises Mark’s increasing influence and allows him to take control of the day to day affairs of the business giving me more time to spend with senior staff in general, helping them, and him, achieve the long-term ambitions we all share.
Taking a more hands on roll in dealing with senior staff as opposed to a more traditional hands off roll for Chairman who generally spend their days dealing with the Board, investors and outside interests.
Also ignoring everything else which is known about GW and their management style and ability to adapt to change.
Analysts can look at whatever they want to look at. However, the reality is that if they are analyzing GW in the manner in which you are...they are missing the boat.
Kroothawk wrote: Putin is president of Russia for only two years, so he is basically a newcomer
Good thing most of us know who is in charge of GW, even when the vice janitor was exchanged two years ago. That's the difference between knowing the company at hand and some textbook trolling.
Why is iit most of us can have a conversation without calling each other a troll but in this thread you consistent accuse others of troll.
If you cannot refute a point of view without resort to calling him or others a troll maybe you are the issue. [MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]
I'll also remain healthily cynical that "the current board hasn't worked together for a full 7 year cycle" is of any real significance to any but a small number of analysts.
Analysts can look at whatever they want to look at. However, the reality is that if they are analyzing GW in the manner in which you are...they are missing the boat.
I have to agree. Whilst any analysis definitely has to focus on the quality and longevity of the management team, the grip that TK has over the company negates the point that DA is making about how long the management team has been together.
There is also disquiet when the chairman, CEO and a large investor is the same person.
Actually, if you're asserting that directorship appointments aren't frequently down to personal relationships as much as experience or knowledge then you're being very naive. Especially when anyone who has had a corporate relationship with GW, or, in my case, is familiar with the environment, seems to be able to recognise that GW is very much an extension of Kirby's personality and philosophy.
You say that "anyone who has had a corporate relationship with GW". Who exactly had come out and given us an inside look at Kirby's "personality and philosophy"? Are you saying this as someone who reads online blogs that claim to have inside knowledge (which is probably even less reliable than the random rumours) or has a disgruntled employee that actually matters come forward? I ask this because you are making blanket generalizations about the management team which i don't see you supporting in any way shape or form. These characters that have been invented online and you've chosen to adopt are completely the construct of someone else's delusions. 99% of the people that talk this nonsense about GW probably have never even stepped foot in the UK, let alone actually gone to GW's corporate headquarters. And i'm sure none have even spoken a word to Mr Kirby.
GW aggressively protecting it's IP and their business practices has nothing to do with how it's board of directors are formed. Tom Kirby still only gets one vote per share he owns. 6.7% of the company is a pretty good % but it's not what anyone would call control and most certainly not enough to hand pick board members. The other 93.3% of the votes comes from other individuals and institutions. That's the way elections and "voting rights" work. Very basic stuff.
Again.. To be classified as an independent director, you have to meet certain criteria. I am amazed by how free conspiracies are thrown around by the peanut gallery. I was completely joking and didn't think anyone would actually try to imply that Kirby did indeed hand pick directors. sheesh.
azreal13 wrote: I'll also remain healthily cynical that "the current board hasn't worked together for a full 7 year cycle" is of any real significance to any but a small number of analysts.
40% of the management team would be considered new since the COO has only had the position since 2012 and the other director has only been there since 2013. You could still make the argument they were entrenched if they had just been directors but you also had 2 executive positions change hands over a very short period as well. CEOs typically aren't rotated in and out of companies that are actually surviving. He has to have made shareholders happy otherwise he'd be long gone.
I think you really need to refamiliarize yourself with the UK Code of Corporate Governance, the Company Act, GW's Articles of Association and, I don't know...maybe stop ignoring things which don't fit your perspective.
You keep saying things like To be classified as an independent director, you have to meet certain criteria and Every single UK company is required to have a 5 member board. The chairman, CEO, COO and 2 independent directors while ignoring facts that refute your claim that Kirby has had limited experience working directly with the current COO/CFO of the company and dismissing real issues like Tom Kirby still only gets one vote per share he owns. 6.7% of the company is a pretty good % but it's not what anyone would call control and most certainly not enough to hand pick board members.
So...a short primer:
The Code is not a rigid set of rules There are very few absolutes within the UK corporate laws. Whether it is publicly traded or not - that is largely irrelevant. They present recommendations which companies follow - and they can break almost all the recommendations when they feel like it, for almost any reason they feel like. They do have to "explain" but the bar is set rather low on that one.
The roles of chairman and chief executive should not be exercised by the same individual.
For most of GW's history, that has not been the case. Excepting the brief period when Wells was CEO and another from late 1998-2000, Kirby has held both positions.
The board should state its reasons if it determines that a director is independent notwithstanding the existence of relationships or circumstances which may appear relevant to its determination, including if the director:
...has served on the board for more than nine years from the date of their first election.
Well, that rules out two of three independent directors based on the criteria listed in the code...how is it handled?
Having considered the performance of and contribution made by each of the directors standing for re-election, the board remains satisfied that the performance of each of the relevant directors continues to be effective and to demonstrate commitment to the role and as such recommends their re-election.
Pencil whipped. Sure, they are still independent even though they have been around since dinosaurs.
The board should be of sufficient size that the requirements of the business can be met and that changes to the board’s composition and that of its committees can be managed without undue disruption, and should not be so large as to be unwieldy.
No specific size to the board. Not 5, not 3, not 7. Just sufficient size. In GW's case, it is sometimes 5, it has been 6, when the last annual report was published - it was 4. It may drop lower at the whim of the Chairman...Kirby. It can also be raised in the same manner.
Except for smaller companies, at least half the board, excluding the chairman, should comprise nonexecutive directors determined by the board to be independent. A smaller company should have at least two independent non-executive directors.
They are qualified as a smaller company - and as such fall under the "should" have 2 independent directors. Not must have, should have. But, we have already seen that GW ignores should in things like Chairman and CEO being the same person.
As mentioned (many times) the COO who Kirby has limited working experience with was CFO for 3 years before they renamed him COO (total of 6 years on the board now) and prior to that he was the head of a major division of GW (for another 4 years). That gives him 10 years of working in pretty close contact with the Chairman and CEO. Given that Kirby was the one who appointed him to the non-executive position...it is highly unlikely that he selected someone at random from the pool of office workers, so quite likely they were working together even before that promotion happened.
Tom Kirby does "only" get one vote per share for his votes - but the nominating committee for new Directors is Myatt and Donaldson. Two guys who have worked with Kirby as Chairman for well over a decade and as the Chairman who determines if they are still independent...he has a certain level of influence over them.
If someone wanted to nominate (or propose a resolution to) replace Kirby as Chairman or CEO - or anything else for that matter, they need to control at least 5% as a single shareholder or at least 100 individual shareholders controlling a combined £10,000 worth of shares (the value is low...100 individuals being the higher bar to meet). The only individual who meets that is Kirby...who can propose actions anyway as Chairman. Of course, one of the 8 major holding investment companies could as well - though they likely would rather just sell their shares as opposed to try to figure out who would be best to come in and fix GW. That then would be a special action which requires 75% of the vote to pass...
Further, since voting at the AGM is entirely voluntary, and historical voting in the AGM for companies FTSE Small Caps is very low (downwards of 50% of total voting rights) - Kirby's shares effectively double, as he is sure to show up. Since he is the one who rubs elbows with the major investors - he will be more likely to gain the simple majority needed to get his way compared to the 75% majority that would be needed in a special action to go against him.
Not to mention your arrogant manner of dismissing everyone who is not you, like 99% of the people that talk this nonsense about GW probably have never even stepped foot in the UK, let alone actually gone to GW's corporate headquarters. And i'm sure none have even spoken a word to Mr Kirby.
Nevermind that I have known Merrett (not board but senior GW) for 15 years on several different levels. I knew Kirby when he was attempting to be an author writing Pelinore articles for Imagine magazine back in the early 1980s. Not like that is relevant to much of anything - but whatever, you seem to think it is. It also ignores (for some reason) that a large portion of the people posting actually live in the UK, and no doubt have been to GW's HQ...granted, speaking directly to Kirby - he tends to be above the riff raff.
Even for those who do not know anyone within GW - they can learn a lot from how Kirby handled the last drop. He went to cost cutting (something which they have continued to do since) and issued this statement for 4 years in a row:
We continue to see Games Workshop as a growth business. The chart below sets out our sales progress from 1991. Between 2002 and 2005 our sales were above our normal growth line. We believe that it is only a matter of time and hard work before we re-establish our historic linear growth rate.
For four years in a row, the sales declined and the linear growth rate has never returned that he was referring to. He sat back and did nothing expecting it to work itself out. Now he will do more of the same, he doesn't understand the product. He doesn't understand the customer. He doesn't understand the market forces which he is loosing out to. With a record number of products in the first half of this fiscal year, sales were down. He still does fancy himself to be an author, as is shown in the manner in which he writes his preambles in the annual reports (and tends to still fall short on that as well).
These are not internet conspiracies - they are observable facts. You can see it in his yearly statements, and in the repetitive actions year over year - time and again moving in the same direction.
Sean_OBrien wrote: I think you really need to refamiliarize yourself with the UK Code of Corporate Governance, the Company Act, GW's Articles of Association and, I don't know...maybe stop ignoring things which don't fit your perspective.
I read the entirety of your post and I don't see anything that indicated my understanding of UK code of corporate governance was wrong. In fact, all you did was copy and past sections from the GW site and offered biased commentary. Again, a glossary would be useful if you only have a cursory understanding of the stock market.
Kirby still has the same % interest in the company. No amount of shoulder rubbing is going to keep institutional shareholders happy. Results matter and if he doesn't get them, he will get replaced. Even if you double his share count, he still doesn't have enough to hand pick directors. Your entire premise is based on conspiracy theories and conjecture. If Kirby is such a good salesman, why hasn't he been able to sell the company to a large competitor and retire to the Bahamas?
And as much as I love the name dropping, my previous assertion that 99% of the people that bitch about GW have very little knowledge of their inner workings is spot on. Most of their information is served to them by people pretending to be important on the internet and they eat it up. It's pathetic.
Sean_OBrien wrote: I think you really need to refamiliarize yourself with the UK Code of Corporate Governance, the Company Act, GW's Articles of Association and, I don't know...maybe stop ignoring things which don't fit your perspective.
I read the entirety of your post and I don't see anything that indicated my understanding of UK code of corporate governance was wrong. In fact, all you did was copy and past sections from the GW site and offered biased commentary. Again, a glossary would be useful if you only have a cursory understanding of the stock market.
Kirby still has the same % interest in the company. No amount of shoulder rubbing is going to keep institutional shareholders happy. Results matter and if he doesn't get them, he will get replaced. Even if you double his share count, he still doesn't have enough to hand pick directors. Your entire premise is based on conspiracy theories and conjecture. If Kirby is such a good salesman, why hasn't he been able to sell the company to a large competitor and retire to the Bahamas?
And as much as I love the name dropping, my previous assertion that 99% of the people that bitch about GW have very little knowledge of their inner workings is spot on. Most of their information is served to them by people pretending to be important on the internet and they eat it up. It's pathetic.
Really?
Really?!
Ok, we're done here, I've tried to help,mot encourage communication in a smoother manner between you and, well, everybody else, but you're clearly just here with your own agenda, and with respect to Alpharius' warning, that at as far as I'll go on the subject.
You state GW are breaking the rules - Sean points out they they aren't, in fact rules - you come back with "but I knew that already"
I state that "people with a personal relationship with GW corporate often say that Kirby has very tight control" - Sean, who has that sort of relationship, agrees - you dismiss it based in the fact that "others don't have that sort of relationship" and accuse him of name dropping!
It really is a shame, because you first started out as someone who seems to have a genuine knowledge and alternate opinion to the woder consensus, and over the intervening time you're now just coming across as someone on a street corner shouting at everyone to buy gold because the end of the world is nigh.
I want to add something here to maybe clarify some realities. While this is a US based example, the governance in the UK and US are similar enough to apply to this example.
I own 21% of Common Class B Stock (i.e., common stock except my shares each count for 10 votes) of my corporation (currently private equity investors only). We have an independent Chairman, which I personally selected and appointed to the Board. And, with 21% of the issued shares, I am also the CEO and single largest shareholder.
That being said, regardless of the rules for boards, governance, etc., I do in fact have complete control of my company. Others can make suggestions, provide input, etc., but at the end of the day, the final decision rests solely with me. A similar example can also be said for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook who owns 14% of the shares, yet 57% of the vote.
While Kirby doesn't have the same interest, so to speak, in GW from an ownership perspective, it is obvious he has that same kind of single control over GW. No one is going to force him out. Very rarely will institutional investors ever force an executive out. Why should they? They can just sell their shares in one company and buy shares in another company that has their stuff together without all the headaches. Same with retail investors (independent individuals). The only reason an institutional fund would ever force an executive out, that I am aware of, is if a member of the fund takes a 'personal' interest in a company. But that is about it.
One has only look at the Kodak from about 2008 to present day to see this example. Antonio Perez, who was only recently replaced, ran Kodak into the ground. He was a terrible CEO. So what did the major shareholders do? They all sold their stock and moved on before the crash into bankruptcy came. Even Leggs Mason, the largest shareholder for 15 years, cashed out and moved on. No one wants the hassle of being involved in "fixing" management at a company when they have thousands of other companies without these problems they can simply put their money in.
As far as the "guidelines" for governance, either in the US or UK, they are designed by what governments think will make things fair. However, the way things are supposed to work and the way things really work are completely different. Thus in the US why CEOs of public corporations are making absurdly excessive amounts of compensation for what value they really bring to the company. A Board, is also frequently referred to as a "Boy's Club" because everyone typically knows everyone else and pretty much let's the CEO do what they want. Frequently, a board member on one CEOs company has that same CEO on the board of the other company. That is the reality, no matter what the rules say.
Finally, as to results, the ONLY results that matter in a public company is the stock price keeps going up. That is it in a nutshell. Revenue growth doesn't mean squat is the stock price drops (just ask Twitter about this). Unfortunately, for most companies the stock market seems to reward cost-cutting and penalize healthy growth (especially in the US). It is no coincidence that some of the biggest days gains in stocks come with announcements of major layoffs. It is sad, but a cold reality nowadays.
The challenge any CEO has is to manage to these realities while also trying to build a sustainable business. It is a very hard balance to achieve until one has the success of a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, etc. Unfortunately, Kirby has fallen into the typical trap of focusing "too" much on the stock realities (which makes sense given his personal fortune is tied there) and, in so doing, has lost complete focus on what really makes that stock price climb on a regular basis.
I'm going to be frank here, and this is just my personal opinion, not fact. Kirby does indeed have a laser focus right now and that is on getting that stock price as high as possible before he retires. However, he, and his management team, are making all the wrong decisions for this to happen. As I have said in a previous thread, if GW were a US company, I would buying on a massive short right now expecting to make a killing in July when the results are reported. GW is in trouble, and it is obvious from all outward signs. This period, with the impending release of 40k 7th edition, they'll have shot every bullet in their barrel to try and stem the decline, but it is a very temporary fix at best. The real results of the 2013-2014 decisions are going to be felt in spades in the late 2014-early 2015 period without a doubt.
This thread is about the stock price, but I think the discussion has become a debate about whether the stock price is a meaningful insight into the health of the company. It's also been very insightful to me to see the perspective of a guy (derek) who clearly has a great working knowledge of how the stock market works, but, based on the last few pages, has no clue how businesses are actually ran. It's kind of telling and shows why the hell stocks are so unpredictable and a beast of their own.
The other thing to remember, since this thread is about share prices, is for us Yanks to remember the conversion. The share prices given are in Pence, not Pounds. The current share prices are around $10.00 USD. The highest they've ever been is less than $20.00 USD.
To put that in perspective, according to a June 2013 WSJ article, the average stock price in the USA was between $30-$50 USD since 1980.
GW stock is pretty small time, and always has been.
Wayshuba wrote: I want to add something here to maybe clarify some realities. While this is a US based example, the governance in the UK and US are similar enough to apply to this example
Pretty sure he already answered that or is there some angle you have with this question?
I own 21% of Common Class B Stock (i.e., common stock except my shares each count for 10 votes) of my corporation (currently private equity investors only).
12thRonin wrote: Pretty sure he already answered that or is there some angle you have with this question?
I own 21% of Common Class B Stock (i.e., common stock except my shares each count for 10 votes) of my corporation (currently private equity investors only).
He's being snarky/facetious (again)
Wayshuba owns equity in a private firm, not a publicly traded one.
It's the only thing he can see to refute, so it is the only thing he addresses.
Wayshuba wrote: I want to add something here to maybe clarify some realities. While this is a US based example, the governance in the UK and US are similar enough to apply to this example
When was your IPO?
Umm... did you see the point I made in that thread about it being private equity ownership only right now?
azreal13 wrote: It's the only thing he can see to refute, so it is the only thing he addresses.
It's all that needs refuting. He's talking private equity and it's a completely different ballgame. It's completely irrelevant. Going down and arguing every single point he made after that would be a waste of time.. Since you specifically asked me to do so...
I think it's kind of silly to try to argue that we live in an age where we don't have shareholder activism. That is absurd considering how many CEO are forced out on a yearly basis. Hell.. google it.
As for CEOs for companies like Kodak, I don't see how those are good examples. We have 3 CEOs since 2000 and 5 since 1999.. And this was a company that was part of the Dow Jones industrials. lolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak Not seeing what point is being made by bringing them up? What's next, bringing up the CEOs for HP? GM? Any other revolving doors?
Under the arrangement, Dustin Moscovitz, Sean Parker, and a host of other Silicon Valley bigwigs have given Zuckerberg “irrevocable proxy” to control their votes. That means that their shares will swing with his shares.
“This is not common at all,” said Menlo Ventures partner Mark Siegel, who has monitored quite a few IPOs in his time in Silicon Valley and spoke to VentureBeat by phone today.
“He negotiated a very unique deal,” said Siegel of Zuckerberg’s coup. While no one knows exactly why Moscovitz, Parker, and a slew of high-powered VC firms would have given up their votes, Siegel speculated, “I’m sure there’s a point where shares were offered with that as a contingency.”
Those relationships were required to be disclosed upon the IPO. In order to be in compliance, those kinds of relationship must be disclosed. 1 share = 1 vote.
Since they are listed on the LSE.. Games Workshop has to stay in compliance. If they don't, they could lose their listing, get fined for every day they are out of compliance and could face even more severe penalties from UK regulators.
azreal13 wrote: It's the only thing he can see to refute, so it is the only thing he addresses.
It's all that needs refuting. He's talking private equity and it's a completely different ballgame. It's completely irrelevant. Going down and arguing every single point he made after that would be a waste of time..
I also think it's kind of silly to try to argue that we live in an age where we don't have shareholder activism. That is absurd considering how many CEO are forced out on a yearly basis.
As for CEOs for companies like Kodak, I don't see how those are good examples. We have 3 CEOs since 2000 and 5 since 1999.. And this was a company that was part of the Dow Jones industrials. lolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak Not seeing what point is being made by bringing them up? What's next, bringing up the CEOs for HP? GM? Any other revolving doors?
Oh and the Facebook Zuckerberg thing is actually a horrible example to prove your point.
Under the arrangement, Dustin Moscovitz, Sean Parker, and a host of other Silicon Valley bigwigs have given Zuckerberg “irrevocable proxy” to control their votes. That means that their shares will swing with his shares.
“This is not common at all,” said Menlo Ventures partner Mark Siegel, who has monitored quite a few IPOs in his time in Silicon Valley and spoke to VentureBeat by phone today.
“He negotiated a very unique deal,” said Siegel of Zuckerberg’s coup. While no one knows exactly why Moscovitz, Parker, and a slew of high-powered VC firms would have given up their votes, Siegel speculated, “I’m sure there’s a point where shares were offered with that as a contingency.”
Those relationships were required to be disclosed upon the IPO. In order to be in compliance, those kinds of relationship must be disclosed. 1 share = 1 vote.
You are talking about how the stock market works... I am talking about how companies work. The biggest reason for a lot of CEO turnover, especially in the US, is it is more advantageous to take the "golden parachute" than stay employed. I personally know one CEO who did this through three companies to the point when he was running the third company, he was still collecting full pay from the other two companies.
Yes, there are CEOs forced out, but that percentage is very, very, very small compared to the number of CEOs who continue to run companies. There are 88 million companies in the world, 4.7 million of which have 50 or more employees and tens of thousands of public companies. How many CEOs exactly get "forced out" every year?
Howard A Treesong wrote: Kirby has been with the company a long time and bought it from Bryan Ansell who had his faults but seemed to show more genuine enthusiasm for the games, if all the various interviews with those involved in the early years of GW are to be believed. Kirby is quoted as saying he hated fantasy and his favourite author was Jane Austen.
Yes, there are CEOs forced out, but that percentage is very, very, very small compared to the number of CEOs who continue to run companies. There are 88 million companies in the world, 4.7 million of which have 50 or more employees and tens of thousands of public companies. How many CEOs exactly get "forced out" every year?
On the exchange traded companies? It's pretty common to see CEOs leave. It's has the same turnover as pretty much any other executive level job and for public companies it's definitely higher than private.
dereksatkinson wrote: Since they are listed on the LSE.. Games Workshop has to stay in compliance. If they don't, they could lose their listing, get fined for every day they are out of compliance and could face even more severe penalties from UK regulators.
Post-IPO interaction with the UKLA
l
DTRs
– a listed issuer must comply with the
DTRs on an ongoing basis, as failure to
comply with these rules may result in the
suspension of the listing of its securities. The
UKLA has a team dedicated to monitoring
issuers’ compliance with the DTRs, and to
providing guidance on these rules on a real-
time basis.
l
Prospectus requirements
– if the issuer
seeks admission of further securities of the
same class it will be required to produce a
prospectus, unless an exemption applies.
Exemptions include, among other things, the
issue of shares under employee share
schemes and bonus issues. The UKLA would
typically be required to approve any future
prospectus.
l
Significant transactions
– if the issuer has a
Premium Listing of its equity shares, it will be
required to consider whether any significant
transaction that it undertakes will need
announcement or, if it is of sufficient size,
shareholder approval. Lower size thresholds
are applied if the transaction is being
undertaken with a related party such as a
director or substantial shareholder. The
Listing Rules include rules governing the
disclosure requirements in circulars where
shareholder approval is sought, and also
clarify which circulars require UKLA approv
It is possible to have 1 share = >1 vote, as long as it is declared.
GW have no such declaration so it is reasonable to assume that no shareholders have this power.
I fail to see the relevance of this to anything other than allowing Derek to disagree with someone?
We're still at the point where I'm unconvinced that Derek has any real world experience of the difference between how corporate life works in practice and how it works in theory, and nothing that's been said is disavowing me of this.
Thanks for that - I've skimmed (I don't expect to read all 113 pages of the rules), but I'm not sure how the DTR's apply to anything discussed so far. I don't think anyone's suggesting GW haven't made full disclosures with regards to their transactions etc.
Possibly more relevant is the list on page 18 of GW's requirements, specifically:
Key eligibility criteria Premium – Equity Shares/ Standard –Shares/ Standard –Depositary Receipts
Key continuing obligations
UK Corporate Governance Code Comply or explain / n/a /n/a
Excuse the poor reformatting. So as regards the Corporate Governance Code, GW are free to not comply with it, as long as they explain why.
Just to be clear. I was only discussing voting rights in relation to my specific example. What was more important to take from the example was that Kirby, most likely, is not going anywhere.
The board and investors are probably well on his side, regardless of what happens and those that aren't, will simply sell their stock and move to another promising company rather than "force" any kind of management change.
Sorry, but GW is a piddly-sized company in the scheme of things, not some multi-billion dollar conglomerate that makes headlines. As such, there is little chance of a management change happening, regardless of the company performance.
Sorry, but GW is a piddly-sized company in the scheme of things, not some multi-billion dollar conglomerate that makes headlines. As such, there is little chance of a management change happening, regardless of the company performance.
This can't be emphasized enough. We're not talking about a massive multi-national like General Electric or Airbus. Very few people who are investors would give enough of a crap to do anything more significant than take their investment dollar somewhere else.
richred_uk wrote: Excuse the poor reformatting. So as regards the Corporate Governance Code, GW are free to not comply with it, as long as they explain why.
Allow me to elaborate on that a little because it's not quite that simple.
Publicly traded companies have specific requirements put on them by regulators and the exchanges. This includes reporting changes in ownership, accounting methods and disclosures that are required to be made public etc. If they fail to comply, they can be subjected to fines and possibly be delisted from the exchange. Being in "compliance" is not always something that can be remedied by a simple disclosure and may require further action. For example, GW was required to change the makeup of their board to add an additional independent director.
Staying in compliance is extremely important and it's not something that should be trivialized. If they are shown to have willingly falsified information, it's a felony. Privately owned companies are not subject to nearly the same level of scrutiny and the job of compliance officers is extremely important.
If Kirby has any relationships with shareholders similar to the ones that Zuckerberg has with FB, where he has "control" over a substantially larger voting block, that is required to be disclosed by law. To say that he has control over the board suggests he does have that kind of relationship with specific shareholders. There aren't two classes of shares here. His control over the board must be disclosed and to say otherwise is accusing GW of a crime.
In addition.. the assumption what is being made here over and over again is that every disgruntled shareholder sells and every new shareholder doesn't want to change management. That is a lofty assumption and I don't think that is grounded in reality. Especially when you are dealing with funds investing in a relatively small company. It's currently worth £182.87m according to the LSE. The price per share is irrelevant. It's big enough where it's an approved investment alternative for many pensions. Oh.. and don't think for a second those pension fund managers don't vote.
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Saldiven wrote: This can't be emphasized enough. We're not talking about a massive multi-national like General Electric or Airbus. Very few people who are investors would give enough of a crap to do anything more significant than take their investment dollar somewhere else.
If capital is being misallocated, it's actually much easier for an activist investor to have an impact on a small company than a GE or Airbus. It might not get the headlines but it's actually much more common.
dereksatkinson wrote: His control over the board must be disclosed and to say otherwise is accusing GW of a crime.
His on paper control has been disclosed.
What you continue to pretend doesn't exist is the buddy system form of control. On paper, he may not be the absolute vote. But I would be amazingly surprised if he didn't essentially control enough votes through lackeys and yes-men.
Saldiven wrote: This can't be emphasized enough. We're not talking about a massive multi-national like General Electric or Airbus. Very few people who are investors would give enough of a crap to do anything more significant than take their investment dollar somewhere else.
If capital is being misallocated, it's actually much easier for an activist investor to have an impact on a small company than a GE or Airbus. It might not get the headlines but it's actually much more common.
Sure, it's easier to do so.
I just doubt that there would be very many people who could be bothered to try.
dereksatkinson wrote: His control over the board must be disclosed and to say otherwise is accusing GW of a crime.
His on paper control has been disclosed.
What you continue to pretend doesn't exist is the buddy system form of control. On paper, he may not be the absolute vote. But I would be amazingly surprised if he didn't essentially control enough votes through lackeys and yes-men.
Care to provide some insight on how you came to these conclusions? Other than 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th hand accounts which are posted anonymously on message boards which clearly do not count.
See.. you are making a fairly serious accusation here. You are saying that they are failing to make a disclosure that is material to the operation of a publicly traded company. That's not something that should be thrown around without actual evidence to support that claim.
If you go back earlier in this thread, you can see that ownership of the company has changed greatly over the past few years following the stepping down of the CEO. So the implication is that a large % of those than stuck around are the ones that are the yes men. So come out and say exactly who you believe to be blindly supporting Kirby and I'll gladly find the dates of all the purchases made by those individuals/funds and research it further. That way we can see how long these people have been involved in the company and whether your assertion holds water.
Now, if all this was just an uninformed off the cuff remark by all means say so. Just don't pretend there is any substance to it whenre there is clearly not.
dereksatkinson wrote: See.. you are making a fairly serious accusation here. You are saying that they are failing to make a disclosure that is material to the operation of a publicly traded company. That's not something that should be thrown around without actual evidence to support that claim.
Except it's not. He, in theory, has no more control than anyone else in his position. That's disclosed.
What isn't - and doesn't have to be - is saying "Hey, these guys normally agree with me."
azreal13 wrote: Real life experience Derek, something you seem to be sadly lacking in this regard.
Real life experience in what?
I've working directly for a publicly traded ETF. I'm involved in the launch of 4 ETFs coming public this October and I deal with compliance officers on a daily basis. I've co-managed a private hedgefund. What else is there I would exactly need to be considered "experienced"?
azreal13 wrote: Real life experience Derek, something you seem to be sadly lacking in this regard.
Real life experience in what?
I've working directly for a publicly traded ETF. I'm involved in the launch of 4 ETFs coming public this October and I deal with compliance officers on a daily basis. I've co-managed a private hedgefund. What else is there I would exactly need to be considered "experienced"?
We're not talking experience in Stock Market related matters, I very literally meant life experience, specifically the sort of office politics that everyone but you seems to be aware goes on.
I'd tell you the story of how it directly cost me my job, despite my being a high performer and not guilty of any sort of failure in any regard, purely down to one individual having a closer relationship to the MD than I did, but as you're incapable of processing any information that doesn't already confirm your own views, I'm going to have dinner instead.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Nice attempt at starting a pissing contest though!
Except it's not. He, in theory, has no more control than anyone else in his position. That's disclosed.
What isn't - and doesn't have to be - is saying "Hey, these guys normally agree with me."
Then prove it. We can see when every investor bought and sold since inception. Name names and stop making off the cuff speculation. Who are you accusing of committing a securities violation by not disclosing an improper relationship.
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azreal13 wrote: We're not talking experience in Stock Market related matters, I very literally meant life experience, specifically the sort of office politics that everyone but you seems to be aware goes on.
Well.. I don't think that shareholders keep a CEO in power because they think he's a swell guy. Personal relationships do matter in business but not to the detriment of the bottom line. No one is above being replaced.
dereksatkinson wrote: Who are you accusing of committing a securities violation by not disclosing an improper relationship.
It's an improper relationship to go golfing with a coworker? And have him convince you that he's right? And want to agree with him because dividends/paycheck?
No - no, it's not. So I'm not accusing a single person of a securities violation.
Saldiven wrote: I just doubt that there would be very many people who could be bothered to try.
Do you know why the financial industry exists?
To rip off the general public, with charges, and speculating of the market(gambling). To run to the governments for handouts. To receive obscene bonuses from companies who are losing money.
Did I miss anything out.??
dereksatkinson wrote: Who are you accusing of committing a securities violation by not disclosing an improper relationship.
It's an improper relationship to go golfing with a coworker? And have him convince you that he's right? And want to agree with him because dividends/paycheck?
No - no, it's not. So I'm not accusing a single person of a securities violation.
Where is there any evidence that something like this has been going on? Who do you suspect of having this kind of relationship with Tom Kirby? Get specific.
Saldiven wrote: I just doubt that there would be very many people who could be bothered to try.
Do you know why the financial industry exists?
To rip off the general public, with charges, and speculating of the market(gambling). To run to the governments for handouts. To receive obscene bonuses from companies who are losing money.
Did I miss anything out.??
Well.. in an oligarchical crony capitalist system like our's sure.. but that's an entirely different discussion
Realistically.. the financial industry exists to give companies access to capital and allow savers a venue to generate return on their capital. If capital is misallocated, you have people whose job it is to seek those companies out specifically for the purpose of making money off fixing those inefficiencies.
dereksatkinson wrote: Who are you accusing of committing a securities violation by not disclosing an improper relationship.
It's an improper relationship to go golfing with a coworker? And have him convince you that he's right? And want to agree with him because dividends/paycheck?
No - no, it's not. So I'm not accusing a single person of a securities violation.
Where is there any evidence that something like this has been going on? Who do you suspect of having this kind of relationship with Tom Kirby? Get specific.
So, you're asking for evidence that something, while widely understood to occur by basically everyone, cannot, by it's very nature, have evidence that it happens?
dereksatkinson wrote: Who are you accusing of committing a securities violation by not disclosing an improper relationship.
It's an improper relationship to go golfing with a coworker? And have him convince you that he's right? And want to agree with him because dividends/paycheck?
No - no, it's not. So I'm not accusing a single person of a securities violation.
Where is there any evidence that something like this has been going on? Who do you suspect of having this kind of relationship with Tom Kirby? Get specific.
Saldiven wrote: I just doubt that there would be very many people who could be bothered to try.
Do you know why the financial industry exists?
To rip off the general public, with charges, and speculating of the market(gambling). To run to the governments for handouts. To receive obscene bonuses from companies who are losing money.
Did I miss anything out.??
Well.. in an oligarchical crony capitalist system like our's sure.. but that's an entirely different discussion
Realistically.. the financial industry exists to give companies access to capital and allow savers a venue to generate return on their capital. If capital is misallocated, you have people whose job it is to seek those companies out specifically for the purpose of making money off fixing those inefficiencies.
Well the financial services people dont seem to be doing their job.
Let us hold off on insulting each other until after the next financial report, eh?
GWis quite obviously trying to take at least some measures - the new edition of WH40K being the prime example.
A lot of folks are complaining about the short life span of the previous edition - but, in my opinion, if the 6th edition was losing them sales (and locally, that was the case) then GWneeded to turn the Etch-a-Sketch over and start shaking.
Just as WotC had to abandon 4th edition D&D - if the new game is losing sales when compared to the older game, then you have made a mistake.
Me - I do not really care about 7th edition.
I hope that it is an awesome game, and I hope that it heralds in a new age of GW actually listening to customers.
If GW can earn the trust of their players and stockholders alike, then more power to 'em.
But I was turned off by 4th edition, and have not bothered with 4th, 5th, or 6th.
Each edition increased random factors, with 6th even making the charge distance random.
So, if I play WH40K at all, I play 3rd edition.
A lot of the folks that I used to play 3rd edition against have moved on - not to newer edition, but to entirely new games. FoW is taking the place of 40K....
And hemorrhaging customers is what GW needs to stop doing, both for their players and their stockholders.
I suspect a normal working relationship between Kirby and the rest of the board given that they've been working together running GW for over a decade.
In the accounting trade, it takes a specific kind of individual to start at a company, get their professional accreditation and then stay at that company until they get the top accounting job. You don't do that without working closely with the existing management.
I don't honestly know why Derek wants to maintain that the current management of GW is fresh and new when their biographies spell it out so clearly that there is only one new face on the board and the rest have been working together for a long, long time.
Even Wells, who was CEO for a bit, was recruited from within and had a previous working relationship with these people.
And we're not anywhere near the point where people are going to think about removing management for poor performance. GW hasn't even reported a loss since what? 2008?
GW's management is both entrenched and secure. And the launch of 7th edition and the continued roll out of single employee stores shows they are still working their current plan both in terms of how they sell their products and what those products are like (7th edition is yet another edition compatible with previous editions).
The market participants as a whole seem to think the drop after the last financial report went a bit too low and GAW.L is now trading over 570p I expect it'll close out the week around there.
Looking at how other companies in the market are run, ie by hobbyists who want to make great models and a fun game rather that just money, I can't agree more. Given the social and somewhat artistic nature of the hobby I think any company would suffer from being publicly owned in this environment.
Shareholders want a good quarter now at the expense of long term stability but without a strong customer base any company in this market is doomed.
dereksatkinson wrote: His control over the board must be disclosed and to say otherwise is accusing GW of a crime.
His on paper control has been disclosed.
What you continue to pretend doesn't exist is the buddy system form of control. On paper, he may not be the absolute vote. But I would be amazingly surprised if he didn't essentially control enough votes through lackeys and yes-men.
Care to provide some insight on how you came to these conclusions? Other than 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th hand accounts which are posted anonymously on message boards which clearly do not count.
See.. you are making a fairly serious accusation here. You are saying that they are failing to make a disclosure that is material to the operation of a publicly traded company. That's not something that should be thrown around without actual evidence to support that claim.
If you go back earlier in this thread, you can see that ownership of the company has changed greatly over the past few years following the stepping down of the CEO. So the implication is that a large % of those than stuck around are the ones that are the yes men. So come out and say exactly who you believe to be blindly supporting Kirby and I'll gladly find the dates of all the purchases made by those individuals/funds and research it further. That way we can see how long these people have been involved in the company and whether your assertion holds water.
Now, if all this was just an uninformed off the cuff remark by all means say so. Just don't pretend there is any substance to it whenre there is clearly not.
The world is not that black and white. This is not how things work in companies in reality.
Why do you think most large public company CEO pay in the US is so absurdly high? Because it is a "Boy's Club" at the top levels. Chairman Joe sits on the board of CEO Bob's company. Chairman Joe says CEO Bob deserves a gazillion dollars and pay and they agree. Meanwhile, at the other company, we now have Chairman Bob sitting on the board of CEO Joe's company saying that CEO Joe deserves a gazillion dollars in pay. There is no securities violation here. Just how it works in the real world.
There is no securities violation for boards members to discuss what they think about direction of the company and vote in kind. This is NOT about Kirby controlling votes (as in the Facebook example). It is about board members who are pretty much going to vote for what Kirby wants regardless. He runs the company and they let him run the company.
And, as far as the institutionals doing anything, you did see how many of them divested a large portion of their holdings after the last reporting period, didn't you? They have lost faith in the company and simply sold their stock and moved on. This is how it works in the real world.
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jonolikespie wrote: Looking at how other companies in the market are run, ie by hobbyists who want to make great models and a fun game rather that just money, I can't agree more. Given the social and somewhat artistic nature of the hobby I think any company would suffer from being publicly owned in this environment.
Shareholders want a good quarter now at the expense of long term stability but without a strong customer base any company in this market is doomed.
I tend to see this differently. I think, yes, shareholders want an obvious return on their investment, but I rarely see them being so quarterly focused. Wall Street has put too much of the focus on each quarter and, as a result, many companies have become excessive about their short term quarterly focus. However, many companies have taken a long term outlook (like Apple or Google) and their stock price has done just fine quarter to quarter.
In a nutshell, I don't think it is the shareholders that force this but rather the management of companies that think this is what they must do for their shareholders and thus run their companies chasing this extremely short term focus.
In a nutshell, I don't think it is the shareholders that force this but rather the management of companies that think this is what they must do for their shareholders and thus run their companies chasing this extremely short term focus.
Couldn't agree more. What shareholders really want if they are rational is high returns over the long term. In reality that is very hard to achieve and consequently you get Management delivering high returns over the short term, while hoping like crazy something will turn up so that they don't get found out, all the while spinning their results like crazy to pretend they are delivering sustainable, long term, high growth. I'm exaggerating for comic effect, but the whole sub-prime debacle of 2008 was triggered by this mispricing of risk, so I am not exaggerating too much.
If you want a challenge and are of a cynical mindset, just read Kirby's pre-ambles in the annual reports where he appears to do exactly this. Much analysis has gone on in this forum over many years (I can remember first commenting on it back in 2004) to decide whether GW's customer base was/is growing or shrinking. The analysis ( a lot of it by people who do this kind of thing for a living, and have been for many years ) has concluded that the likelihood is that GW's customer base (At least for 40k and WFB) has been shrinking year on year since the turn of the millenium, yet Kirby has been spinning their company growth as sustainable and long term, when it has, seemingly actually been shrinking in volume terms (if not price, at least until the last semi-annual report, where it did fall in price terms). Note, I am *not* accusing Kirby of lying, after all he may actually believe the stuff he spouts, or at least not be entirely unconvinced. The reality however may be that long term, sustainable growth is only achievable at levels that the investors may find unattractive, and so we seem to leap from new wheeze to new wheeze in an effort to milk the dwindling numbers of dedicated die-hards of ever more cash, while leaving increasing numbers of disenchanted former fans to move on elsewhere.
If the LotR bubble had not occurred with the cash-injection that resulted over 2001-04 allowing debt to be paid down and machinery and infrastructure to be upgraded, GW would quite probably not exist now, or would more likely have had to make the structural changes it is doing now or even worse, maybe almost a decade ago.
The world is not that black and white. This is not how things work in companies in reality.
Why do you think most large public company CEO pay in the US is so absurdly high? Because it is a "Boy's Club" at the top levels. Chairman Joe sits on the board of CEO Bob's company. Chairman Joe says CEO Bob deserves a gazillion dollars and pay and they agree. Meanwhile, at the other company, we now have Chairman Bob sitting on the board of CEO Joe's company saying that CEO Joe deserves a gazillion dollars in pay. There is no securities violation here. Just how it works in the real world.
There is no securities violation for boards members to discuss what they think about direction of the company and vote in kind. This is NOT about Kirby controlling votes (as in the Facebook example). It is about board members who are pretty much going to vote for what Kirby wants regardless. He runs the company and they let him run the company.
I don't think that derek is arguing with the claim that 'Relationships between Board members can exist'. He's not disputing that. He's moving to the next logical step.
He's saying, 'Okay. If that is the case, please point out for me the relationships that you are saying exist within GW. Prove that these relationships exist, or at the very least, show me what has occurred with regards to which specific Board members, that makes you think that it is the case here. Otherwise, how do you know that this is the case?'
To which a lot of people are saying, 'Aha! You're denying that these kinds of relationships could exist! Which is not what he's doing. He's asking for proof, be it circumstantial or substantial, that this is specifically the case in GW.
Simply saying, 'Well it happens in every company, don't you know?' doesn't really count as proof/evidence, any more than I should assume that people do or don't have a University degree until they imply one or the other in some way. The logical position to take without specific evidence is to neither assume something is or isn't the case.
The fact he's asking for evidence betrays a certain naïveté.
If I go for a job interview at the company my dad's best friend owns, and I get the job when an equally qualified candidate doesn't, the odds are my prior relationship has had an influence on that outcome.
Could the rejected candidate prove that? No, not unless I was blatantly less qualified, even then the company could list any number of other bs excuses as to why I'd been chosen in preference. None of which could be proven false.
This is endemic in western culture, all the way up, and to argue otherwise is just plain daft, or naive.
Does it happen in every situation? Probably not. But it goes on, anyone who's worked in a corporate environment knows this, if there were any proof/evidence to support that to the point where it was enforceable, there'd be a whole load more employment tribunals happening.
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